


Can't afford not to care anymore

by MyLegsAreBr0kenn



Series: Au's, Skeletons, and Trash [1]
Category: Altertale - Fandom, Underswap - Fandom, Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate POVs, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Altertale (Undertale), Alternate Universe - Underswap (Undertale), Angst, Chara is a female, Chara is trying to hookup with sans, Drunkenness, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, F/M, Frisk is 15, Genocide, Humor, Love Triangles, Papyrus isn't a dingus, Sans is a horrible role model, Sans is apathetic, Soul Science, Swearing, Toriel is sweetheart, chara actually cares, chara is 16, chara is kinda a dick, edgyness, everybody has fucking problems, everybody swears a little too much, frisk is a female, puns, reader is sans, sans has a thing for toriel, sans is sciency
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-09
Updated: 2018-12-01
Packaged: 2019-07-28 13:08:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 43,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16242269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MyLegsAreBr0kenn/pseuds/MyLegsAreBr0kenn
Summary: ok basically this is about an idiot skeleton and another idiot human did something dumb on accident and now they have to crawl their way out of it.whole lotta swearing, but overall a pretty "happy" story for the first few chapters.and then oh no everybody sad oh no





	1. Yet another reset

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the beginning of this is bad and i know it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fixed some stuff

You’re tired, so tired. All you want is just a break, but the kid keeps swinging their knife like it’s just a toy. Every bone in your body is aching for the sweet release of death. _Just end it for me quickly, kid_.

 

**Slice** , dodge

 

**Slice** , dodge

 

This isn’t the first time the kid has been here, in this pitiful hall. Timelines are thrown away like nothing, everybody has to relive the same few hours as if they’re new, but you, on the other hand, remember. It’s a curse, in a way, remembering. You would give anything to just **forget** , to not be plagued by some dirty _anomaly._ Do you know how this feels? Knowing that literally every action you make means nothing?

 

**Slice,** dodge

 

At least the kid as been getting quicker at killing you, maybe you can finally see your bro again. He’s pretty much the only thing that’s keeping you going at this point, his bright smile can always make you happier, even if by just a little bit.. But in the end, does it really matter? The anomaly is still running around, forcing time to repeat itself as normal, with you waking up to your ever-lonely room.

 

**Slice,** dodge

 

You are just barely able to teleport from the range of the knife, it connecting just barely into your hoodie, leaving a large cut. You picked the anomaly up with blue magic and slammed them into the wall, leaving a sickening _crunch._ That should stall them for a lil’ bit. The kid pulls out a piece of a snowman and scarfs it down, instantly replenishing their injuries.

_“So much for getting a break…” you think_

Large bones shoot out of the floor, marching towards the anomaly at a fast pace, but they’re easily dodged. You teleport to the other side of the room and summon more bones, the kid’s knife slicing through them like paper.

 

**Slice,** dodge

 

What’s there to really think about? At least Flowey had the decency to mix it up, change what he would do each time. The kiddo just does the same things over and over again, expecting a different result. Literally the definition of insanity. I guess I can call them insane now.

 

**Slice,** dodge

 

All of this fighting gets tiring, ya know? You have tried every move that you can even think of, but none of it even fazes the kid. You are so lost in thought that you don’t notice the knife flying towards your torso.

 

**Slice,**

  


**HIT…**

 

_I guess that was expected._

The anomaly is smiling, a manic, crazed smile only fueled by their insane LV. Your blood coats not only their knife, but also the tiled floor. Using the last of your already abysmal energy reserves, you get onto your feet.

“guess it’s about time i go grillbz.” _blood is leaking out of your mouth_

Limping on your legs, each step feeling like the physical representation of hell, you make it out of the judgement hall.

“paps, ya want something?”

Only when no one can see you, do you finally crumble and **die.**

 

\-------------------

 

Your eyes shoot open, casting the room in blue from your magic. Trauma from your own death makes you do an involuntary scream.

_Knock knock_

“SANS, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT, I HEARD YELLING AND CAME TO CHECK ON MY BESTEST BROTHER!” Papyrus says through the door, his voice slightly muffled

The voice of your younger brother allows you to stay just a little bit composed.

“y-yeah bro i’m fine, just give me a minute, would ya?” _you’re definitely not fine_

“I TRUST YOU SANS.” He pauses “BE DOWN QUICK! I HAVE PREPARED THE BEST BREAKFAST SPAGHETTI OF YOUR ENTIRE SKELETAL LIFE!” Loud footsteps can be heard running down the stairs

Time to recollect your thoughts, not that is really much to recollect _on_ . So you died, cool, another one to add to the death list. Everyone else died too, even including your bro. Rage boils in you, how could the anomaly be so **unfair!** Papyrus is the nicest monster to ever grace the underground! How could anyone bring themselves to murder such a kind soul?!

To even to mention how _merciless_ they were, they enjoyed the genocide they gave us. Only they could enjoy murdering everybody just because they could. They loved it when Paps got betrayed, when Undyne was in so much pain, when Mettaton became scrap metal, when I disintegrated into dust. Their face whenever somebody died was something that you could never forget, a crooked smile that truly the most fucked up of people could even make.

You didn’t even notice the blue-hued tears rolling down your cheek. You wipe the sleeve of your  hoodie on the tears to get rid of them.

_i better stop crying before paps gets suspicious._

Good philosophy. After resting for another 5 minutes ad collecting on your thoughts. You check the time, it reads 7AM, you wish you could sleep in for longer, but Papyrus wouldn’t like that. After sliding off of your mattress, you make your way down to the spaghetti master himself.

_Remember, smile, smile_

“SANS! YOU FINALLY GOT OUT OF YOUR GREASY ROOM!” _it ain’t even that greasy_

“sure did bro. i deserve a medal.” _i could’ve stayed in there all day_

“YOU DO! NOW COME ON, WE HAVE NO TIME TO WASTE! WE HAVE MANY PLATES OF SPAGHETTI TO FEAST UPON! NYEHEHEH!” _oh boy, the best part of a new timeline_

Least that went somewhat well, he didn’t bother to mention what happened when you woke up. You take a seat at the table across from your brother, Papyrus pushes a plate a spaghetti to you at the table. If I’m going to be honest, his spaghetti is top-tier ass. I haven’t even eaten a single plate since a few months’ worth of resets back. Like, how the hell do you make pasta noodles _crunchy_ when they have been boiling in water, or the sauce become like gelatin, when all you have to do is heat it up and combine some ingredients. How the _fuck_ does he mess up that bad? Maybe you should see how he makes it in a future reset. Eh, finding out the secret formula to garbage spaghetti doesn’t matter. All that really matters now is stopping the anomaly and getting you some more sleep.

You dump your spaghetti in the trash when paps isn’t looking, and say you’re going for a walk. Maybe a walk can help calm your tense nerves, and make it so paps doesn’t get mad at you for wasting spaghetti _again._

Snowdin is a peaceful place, not only the town, but the woods and uninhabited areas. The silence is something that can easily calm you, make you forget what your prior conflicts were about. Maybe if you’re lucky enough Tori will answer your knocks on the door, and you can have a genuine laugh. For some reason, Tori sometimes doesn’t come to the door, honestly she’s really unpredictable, but now you really need to have someone near you. Because of this, going there is probably the best idea, laughter is the best medicine after all. You trudge your way through the snow over to the Ruins door, and lean onto it.

After sitting there at the door in silence for a couple of minutes, you finally muster the courage to knock. Two fast, but loud knocks on the door is good enough for now, time to get comfortable. Couple of minutes later, nothing, I should’ve guessed. You sigh loudly, it’s disappointing whenever Tori doesn’t show up. I guess I can try again though, it won’t hurt, two more knocks. As you sit there in the snow, you cross your fingers that she will actually show up. Your wish is granted when you hear the fast tittering of clawed feet beyond the door. Good thing I actually tried again, you couldn’t ever miss some quality time with your favorite goat.

“Oh! Dear friend, you are quite early.” she hesitates to say her next words “Did something happen?” _She sounds concerned_

“nah, nothing happened, just came here because I was feeling a lil lonely.” _Good, cover it up._

A soft chuckle can be heard “Guess you came to the right place, friend.” There is a short pause “What are differences between a tuna, a piano, and some glue?” _straight into the puns i see._

_ol’ reliable, but what’s up with the glue? guess i’ll find out._

“uh, I don’t really know.”

“You can tune a piano but you can’t **tune a fish** _._ ” She giggles more

The joke was so goddamn blatant that is somehow became gold. You laughed with your friend, but what about the glue?

Confused, you ask “wait, wait, you mentioned something about glue.”

“I knew you would be **stuck** on that!” loud laughter is heard from the other side of the door

That was clever. You let out a loud genuine laugh, and _definitely_ adding that joke to my memory. Being with someone that can always cheer you up is a great feeling, it fills you with hope of maybe a better future. After sometime to calm down and crack a few more jokes, your previous aches are now long gone. You grab your phone to check the time, _welp, i gotta get to paps soon._

“eh, sorry lady, but we are going to have a to cut this a little short.”

“Oh? Is that so? Well, that’s okay, I’ll see you some other time, good friend. Take care!”

“yeah, same, don’t run into any trouble.” _You mean it._

Tori has always been someone that can lift my spirits easily, I really wish I could see her more often, but she is pretty unpredictable when it comes to showing up. The first time I met her, like face-to-face, was the first time the barrier was broken. I was so happy to meet my mysterious friend after all this time, and they even ended up being the long-lost queen, even if I don’t think of them as a “queen.” But, as the norm, it gets all erased by the anomaly, everyone forgets, so on. It’s annoying that we can’t have a happy ending for once, just this depressing cycle, nothing more.

Maybe this timeline will be the one that actually makes a difference.

 

\---------------------

 

“SANS! ARE YOU REALLY SLEEPING AT YOUR POST _AGAIN_?”

You jolt up awake unpleasantly to your brother scolding you. You focus your eyelights to see Papyrus looming over you.

“nah just resting my eyes” _Terrible excuse_

“THAT’S CALLED A NAP! NAPPING ON THE JOB! WE HAVE TO STAY VIGILANT IF I WANT TO JOIN THE ROYAL GUARD!” He strikes a pose “WHAT IF A HUMAN COMES THROUGH HERE?” _ha, i know the exact time they will come_

“aw come on, you don’t think i can join the royal guard?” Papyrus smile grows slightly “don’t **sleep** on me.” His smile immediately disappears

“AUGH!” He throws his hands up “WHAT’S UP WITH YOU AND MAKING PUNS ABOUT _EVERYTHING_?”

You shrug “just what i do.”

Papyrus glares at you “JUST DON’T DO ANYMORE SLEEPING ON THE JOB! I HATE WHEN YOU DO THAT, ALMOST AS MUCH AS YOUR HORRIBLE PUNS!”

“yeah yeah, no more sleeping.”

“YOU’RE LYING AND YOU KNOW IT!”

“looks like ya caught me.” You wink and put your hands up in the air “am i under ar- **rest**?” Papyrus’ face is hilarious

“YOU KNOW WHAT? I DON’T CARE ANYMORE.”

Papyrus storms away from your post, obviously irritated, and walks off to do more rounds of the place. Maybe he didn’t feel like dealing with my shenanigans.

Guess it’s sleeping time. You try to close your eyes, but it is immediately interrupted by the crunch of snow in the distance. Of course it’s the fucking anomaly, or maybe it’s not. Maybe if it is the anomaly, they will actually care, or not kill anyone, but you doubt it. Also whenever they speak it makes your spine tingle, it sounds... unnatural? You probably just don’t like them, so you don’t wanna hear them. You check your phone for the time, it reads 9AM, I guess I gotta deal with some annoying humans. You teleport near the Ruins door, to see the kid in all their glory. This time, they’re wearing a green shirt with a single yellow stripe on it, they occasionally do that.

In these newer resets, you have been kind of messing with the kid in small ways, for example replacing the whoopie cushion in your hands for ketchup. This time, you’re just going to do the most serious handshake you can muster. No tricks, literally just the most plain-ass handshake of all time. That’s oughta to mess with them. You destroy the shit of the large branch on the path with your magic. The kid doesn’t even flinch, guess after all this time, they got used to it, at least  they haven’t gotten any LV this run. They’re finally at the shitty gate your brother installed, you do the usual creepy walking behind them.

“aw, pal, don’t you know how to greet a _new_ friend?”

“Hehe, Sans, I do.”

_Please don’t ever talk again._

The kid turns their body towards you before you ask them to shake your hand. They keep constant eye contact, their deep crimson eyes penetrating your weak monster soul, you glance away nervously. After the first few genocide-runs, Frisk gave their soul to Chara, a fallen human trapped in their soul, you have learned. Apparently, this is also the _same_ Chara that was part of the royal family all those years ago, so that’s weird. As a result, Chara has been in control for quite a long time, and their eyes are now red instead of a light blue. Sometimes you still see a glimpse of Frisk, but to be honest, they’re pretty much the same person anyway.

You pull your hand out of your hoodie pocket and offer your hand to the kid. They take it and expect something to happen, but nothing does. The face on Chara is hilarious, a mixture of confusion and anticipation, it’s hard to stifle your laughs. When they finally realize the joke is that literally nothing is going to happen, they look irritated. Now's the time you laugh, a few deep chuckles coming out of your body.

“Seriously? For a comedian that wasn’t very funny.”

“it’s more funny if you’re the one doing it.” The look on their face is priceless

“This was literally nothing! I expected more from you, but you’re just a worthless _trashbag._ ”

“save the insults for later, it does **nothing** to me.” You add the subtle pun, hoping they notice it.

“Oh I’m _sure_ it does nothing to you, comedian. I notice how you have been acting.” _do you really think i care?_

“at least someone notices, even if they’re a total **bonehead**.”

“Can you be serious for once?” _since when was this serious?_

“and here i was thinking that i’m sans, but now i guess i’m serious”

“Hmph” They turn around “If you don’t wanna talk, I’ll just leave.” Chara walks away from me, towards my station, you don’t bother to follow her

Glad that went just a little well, least I know Tori ain’t dead, maybe I can get an extra chat in, that would be fun. Guess I have two options, go back to sleep, or chaperone Papyrus, and I know for a fact that Papyrus isn’t facing the kid himself. Finding your brother’s dust doesn’t seem like something that you would want to do.

You take a shortcut near Papyrus’ patrolling route. You can can spot him making his way near where the human is. You wonder how Paps will react if he sees a human without you there, guess it’s the time to find out what happens. Loud ‘nyehs’ can be heard from the room. Muffled talking, it’s indecipherable, whatever they’re saying. It’s worrying to know that the human could’ve said _anything_ to your bro. After a few more nyehs, Papyrus comes back looking happier than ever. I don’t bother to talk to him, I have some other things to do. Like sleeping. Actually that’s a horrible idea, not with Chara running around.

You meet up with Papyrus anyway, and ask him if he met the human.

“OH, YES SANS, I DID! THEY SEEMED VERY KIND!” _What a lie_ “THEY EVEN SAID THEY WOULD DO MY PUZZLES!”

“cool bro, hope they’re **puzzling**.” Papyrus’ eye twitches in response

“YES BROTHER, THEY SHALL BE THE BEST! I DESIGNED THEM AFTER ALL!”

After a few moments of silence, you begin to speak up

“i’ll meet up with you after I have a little chat with the human, just to get to know them better.”

“GREAT IDEA SANS! I’LL SEE YOU LATER, THEN! NYEHEHEH!” Papyrus walks away into the next room

You had a few choice words in mind for the human, mainly showing your anger of the previous run. They deserve to be judged. You teleport to the room the kid is residing in.

“hey kiddo.” you say while going through a shortcut

Chara yells several profanities and falls down into the snow. After recovering their composure, they decide to say something.

“Do NOT scare me like that, comedian.” _It was worded like a threat, it probably was_

“i’m totally gonna continue doing that, it got a pretty good reaction.”

“Why are you even here? We already had our little ‘chat,’ now _scram._ ”

“a little **blunt** , don’t you think? unlike the knife you used in the last run.” You wink “quick question, how many times do you want to continue this little game of yours?”

“As much times as I _please_ , I’m pretty much a god, so I get to do whatever i want.” They shrug their shoulders

“thats kinda sad if i'm going to be honest”

“Your continued existence is sad”

“fair enough”

“What, do you want to die? Cause’ i’ll make it happen.”

“yeah kinda, i wouldn’t mind” _you really wouldn’t mind._

“...”

“...”

“...Wow” Chara suddenly looks uncomfortable

“guess i’ll take my leave, **cool** chat.”

Chara hesitates to take their next words, weird.

“Well, okay then.” Is that guilt? Nah it can’t be, Chara is the last person to feel guilt. They’re nothing but a demon.

You were going to teleport away, but it seems like Chara has to say something. It must be very important if they want **you** , of all people to hear it, you’re just a nuisance to them.

Their voice is much quieter than it normally is. “Do you hate me, Sans?”

You take a moment to consider this, do you _really_ hate them? Sure, they killed all of your friends for nothing other than ‘oh it was fun.’ But they never made them suffer, they always made it quick. If Chara died, what would you think? Probably relieved, but also anxious, days get easier when you know what’s going to happen, but when that’s ripped away you probably wouldn’t know what to do. But does is that really enough for  _murdering all of your friends?_ Probably not, but we’re only talking about Chara here, and they have only done a fraction on what Frisk does. You settle on your final answer.

“aw, how could i ever hate my favorite human?” _chara blushes, probably embarrassed_

“Why though, I killed everyone you love! You _saw_ me do it, how can you not hate me?” _do they want me to hate them?_

“it’s kind of hard to hate someone if they know what their doing is bad.”

“But I liked killing everyone! You know that!” _damn that hit a nerve_

“if you enjoyed it, why didn’t you do it this time?” _Chara hesitates, seems like they don’t have an answer_

“I don’t know.”

“then why does it even matter if i hate you or not, we’re just going to have the same outcome, wouldn’t we?” _Chara looks taken aback by this_

“Me and Frisk had a conversation after the last run, and uh, _we_ want to change how you think about us.” _they stress ‘we’ like it’s only one of them thinking that_

“are you sure that’s not just you wanting to change?”

“It’s not just me, look, can you just accept that we want to own up to our mistakes?” _they look pretty nervous_

“i guess i can, kiddo.” _if they wanna try, they can, doesn’t mean i’ll trust them_

“Good.” _they look relieved_ “We should reset this timeline because I uh, was a little rude in the ruins.” _i wonder what ‘a little rude’ means_

“probably the best idea, wanna go get some grub at grillbz before, then?”

“We should do that _next_ timeline, it would be smart.” I grab Chara’s arm to shortcut them to Grillby’s anyways

“nope, i don’t wanna waste my money next timeline” _gotta save it for lab supplies_

“It doesn’t matter, a few G lost doesn’t mean shit, I’ll just reset before you get to Grillby’s” _fuck_

“not if i can shortcut faster” You wait a few moments and try to teleport, but everything goes black

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Chara screams

You feel like you’re walking on air, hell, your probably are. Everything’s pitch black, this isn’t what a shortcut is supposed to do. You are silently panicking,  what if it went wrong? What if instead of teleporting to Grillby’s, you went nowhere, just vast, empty void. Actually, that would make sense, as what you’re residing in right now is just a _vast, empty void_ . Literally just pure blackness, you can’t even scream because of how shocking it is. Every second feels like an entire lifetime, hell, maybe every second **IS** an entire lifetime. Weirdly, though, you still feel the coldness of the snowdin air on your bones, and the calming scent of pines. It’s almost as if you didn’t leave snowdin at all, or maybe you’re still there? Just blinded by something else, magic, perhaps? Or maybe Chara reseted at the same time as your shortcut, bringing you with them.

You count that as a possibility. Maybe if Chara DID reset at the same time as a shortcut, the determination was too much for it to handle? Or maybe since if they brought me with them, I entered an area that is inaccessible for someone else besides them to enter. Maybe you need a high determination count to enter this area, I _do_ have determination in my body, unlike most monsters, so I guess I can enter this area. But what i’m thinking is all theoretical, I should ask Chara, if they’re even awake.

“h-hey chara, kiddo, you still there?”

“Yeah, what in the absolute _fuck_ just happened?” _guess they have no clue_

“absolutley no fuckin idea, any idea where we are?”

“I was gonna say the SAVE screen, but it seems like we’re still in snowdin, but also not at the same time” _what the hell even is a ‘save screen’?_

“what do we even do th-” you were cut off by an enormous amount of pain and a blinding light

“HOLY SH-” and then everything stopped

 

\------------------

 

It feels like all of your senses were multiplied by the thousands, you can’t even breathe, it’s not like skeletons need that anyway. Then you start falling, not from very high, but high enough so it hurts. The snow on the floor collides with your bones, so you can determine that you’re still in snowdin.

You have the most splitting headache (skullache?) you have ever had. No amount of hangovers could ever compare to the pain you’re feeling in your skull right now. Your bones can feel the snow underneath your body, it’s like you never even moved. Or did you move? Your mind can’t even think straight due to all the pain. Something feels pretty unfamiliar, like something has changed, is it the air? Maybe you aren’t even in the underground anymore. You don’t even bother to open your eyes, the headache is just too much for you to handle. I should give myself a few minutes of sleep, let myself get over it. You close your eyes and drift off into dreamland.

 

\-------------------

 

_“paps, there is no way you can eat that much spaghetti.”_

_“NONSENSE! I COULD EAT AN ENTIRE HOUSE FULL OF SPAGHETTI!”_

_A huge pile of spaghetti, at least 20 plates of it sits on the table at Undyne’s house._

_“Sans, you wanna place a bet? 100G that Papyrus can eat all of that spaghetti.”_

_“you’re on, dyne’”_

_Papyrus cracks his knuckle bones, and proceeds to start shoving mouthfuls of over-cooked noodles into in mouth. He’s eating it ridiculously fast, already done with a few of the plates._

_“That 100G is mine, I pretty much SMELL it.”_

_“i think that’s the spaghetti your smelling”_

_Papyrus stops eating and glares at me, and then continues eating the spaghetti. He is picking every plate clean of every last noodle. Quite a good amount of time later, and papyrus is on the two last plates._

_“fuck.” you mutter under your breath_

_“So Sans, how are you gonna pay me? Physical money or by check?”_

_“he ain’t done yet, let him finish”_

_It doesn’t really matter, though. He was already halfway done with the last plate. You grumble, losing 100G is pretty annoying, and Undyne is gonna rub this in your face forever. Papyrus polishes off the last plate of spaghetti, looking very proud of himself._

_“NYEHEHEH! I TOLD YOU I COULD EAT ALL OF THAT SPAGHETTI, SANS!” He talks quieter than he normally would, probably because of all the spaghetti_

_“Sans, whip out that wallet, lemme see that sweet gold.”_

_You pull out your wallet and pay Undyne her 100G, guess I’m not going to Grillby’s later._

_Everything fades into blackness, and you have no other dreams for the remainder of your sleep._

 

\------------------

 

You wake up only to hear voices, one of them sounds familiar, soft and comforting, while the other sounds, enthusiastic, but worried. Actually both of them sound pretty worried. Their voices are kind of muffled, like their whispering, or just talking quietly.

Your headache is mostly gone, so you’re actually able to open your eyes. You see a pair of goats, one of them in a pink hoodie, while the other with a scarf and clothing similar to Papyrus’ battle body.

“Oh! You’re up!” _this one sounds very close to Tori’s voice, maybe related?_

“You have been sleeping in the snow for… I don’t really know, but probably a good while!” _this one is peering over you, he looks similar to asgore, just much shorter, weird._

“Are you going to be okay, uh, what’s your name?” _it’s hard to get a good view of this one, but they’re wearing hoodie._

It takes a few moments to catch your voice, it feels like an eternity since you last spoke.

“uh, my name is sans, sans the skeleton” You say this while getting up from the snow. You get a better view of hoodie-goat, they look like Tori, same long floppy ears too.

“Wait, you sound very familiar, are you the kind skeleton beyond the ruins door?” Hoodie-goat says, looking like they know for sure that they’re right

“hold up, there isn’t any skeletons behind the ruins door.” you say, confused, it then strikes you, maybe this isn’t my timeline, you have done quite a huge amount of research on alternate timelines. There is just no way that this goat resembles Tori so well. You check both of the goats.

 

Asgore

LV 1                                                                                          EXP: 0

HP 680/680                                                                              NEXT: 10

ATK: 20

DEF: 20 (2)

WEAPON: none

ARMOR: Asgore’s Scarf

GOLD: 20     KILLED: 0

 

Okay, there is no fuckin way that this is true, this can’t be Asgore. This tiny-ass goat can’t be the king of the entire Underground. Maybe my check is playing tricks on me? I should check the other one just to be sure.

 

Toriel

LV 1                                                                                          EXP: 0

HP 1/1                                                                                      NEXT: 10

ATK: 1

DEF: 1

WEAPON: none

ARMOR: none

GOLD: 50     KILLED: 0

 

No. I refuse to believe this. I am in a goddamn alternate dimension, okay, okay. I’ll just ask them for their names to clear some things up, they better not say “Asgore” or “Toriel” though.

“can i get your names, actually? that might help us with this.” _probably a weird question to them, but i need answers_

“I’m Asgore! The most prestigious and magnificent monster in the entire underground!” _well fuck me in my skeletal ass_

“Name’s Toriel, just a really good sis, nothing too special” _asgore isn’t toriel’s sister, this is obviously not my timeline. or maybe some super secret incest shit is going on_

“uh, this is going to be confusing, but uh, do you know any science, tori?” _fuck, i accidentally said her nickname_

“Why yes, I do actually, used to do science regarding souls.” _okay, now this the final piece of evidence i need, toriel has never done any science from what you remember_

“okay uh, well” _you are sweating a little bit_ “this is gonna be hard to explain.”

“how bout we start with the problem.” _best to spill the beans first_ “i’m in the wrong timeline.” _i swear to god if i’m wrong about this timeline shit, i’ll be pissed_

“O-oh, that’s, wow. Pretty big.” Tori stutters, _probably wasn’t expecting that, why did they even believe me?_

“and i have no idea how even got here” All Toriel can spare is a… confused look? Hard to pinpoint what she’s thinking.

“Do you have anywhere to stay… Sans?” Asgore speaks up

“uh, no, i dropped out of nowhere, literally.”

“Were you with anyone when you got here?”

“yeah, i did. a human actually, they’re wearing this green and yellow striped shirt, pretty noticeable” Toriel’s face tenses up when she hears human, but relaxes when she hears the color of the shirt. “they should be somewhere around here”

“Then It’s my duty to find your friend! I shall be off!” Asgore runs off to find Chara, leaving you and Tori together

Now you actually can get a good view of the goat. They’re a little bit taller than your size, but only by 1 or 2 inches. Their zipped up hoodie is a light pink, and slightly oversized, she is also wearing light brown sweatpants. Their face resembles Tori from your timeline, but lacks the motherly vibe, they seem like a very chill person. Their fur also looks pretty damn soft, _maybe you should touch it._

Okay, no. You pretty much just met, and i’m already hitting creeper levels here. You start blushing lightly. Tori also seems to be studying you, they look at your eyes, and then start to blush. _Well i guess we both thought of something weird._ We got some alone time, it’s best to get to know them.

“so, tori, knock knock.” _this should tell me who they are like_

It takes a moment for it to register that it’s a knock knock joke. “W-who’s there?”

“déjà”

“Déjà who?”

“knock knock”

Toriel lets out a laugh, an accidentally falls onto the snow, still laughing. It takes a few moments for Tori to calm down.

“Are you _sure_ you’re not the skeleton behind the door?” she says while still chuckling

“nah, in my timeline you were actually the one behind the door.”

“Huh, **cool**.” You help Tori get out of the snow. Her paws are so goddamn soft.

“so question, uh, sorry if this sounds weird, but have you met a human before?” Toriel noticeably tenses up her entire body

“Yes.” _only one word, maybe she had the same experiences as me?_

“okay then” _not going to press the matter, it’s probably bad_

Loud footsteps can be heard in the distance, Asgore comes into the clearing holding and unconscious Chara in their hands. Looks like their hurt, their arm has some blood on it, and is still leaking.

“i’m uh, not sure, but humans are supposed to have that _inside_ their bodies.”

“I found the human!” Asgore strikes a pose “We shall celebrate with **_tea_**!” Toriel immediately runs to Chara and heals them with green magic, the cut on their arm sealing up.

“Thanks sis, I suck at that magic.” Tori replies with “No prob”

“nice, you found the kid, least they didn’t get hurt too bad.”

“S-sans, we should bring them to our house, so they can recover, you can crash there as long as you like.” _huh, they’re as sweet as my toriel, wonder why they’re even bothering to help me_

“thanks tori, means a whole lot to me.” Toriel blushes and turns away from you

“We should get going to the house, then” Asgore tells us

“I’ll, uh, meet with you guys at the house, I know a shortcut.” Toriel walks away, still blushing furiously

Only you, Asgore, and an unconscious kid remains. You both start walking silently to Snowdin town, neither of you bothering to engage in conversation. The situation is already weird enough already, it’s best to just wallow in your own thoughts.

It’s funny, isn’t it? One moment you try to go to Grillby's with the anomaly, and the next you literally get carried through time and space into an alternate universe. The people you’ve met so far are pretty nice, and also similar to the ones in your universe. How about the others? Will you even meet them? Only time will tell, I guess, hopefully things are similar enough so you don’t have problems adjusting.

How about returning to your own universe? Is getting to this universe a one-way trip? Will you ever see your brother again? The thought of that happening sickens you. Maybe you could build a machine or something that can travel the multiverse, or just do the reset-shortcut thing again until it works. Assuming Chara can even reset, that is.

You have arrived at Snowdin Town, they still have a Grillby’s here, so you should grab some of that later, and maybe make a few remarks about it to Chara. The thought of it makes you smile, Chara would definitely cuss you out or something, and that’s hilarious. You’re nearing the house that Asgore and Toriel are living in, the outside is identical to the one you had, you wonder if the inside is the same? You wonder where this universe’s Sans and Papyrus is. As you turn the handle and open the door, you can see Toriel in the kitchen spraying whipped cream into her mouth, she looks very guilty. It’s hilarious, her face looks like she stole a cookie out of the cookie jar, you begin laughing, and Toriel looks away from you.

“sorry tori, it’s just...” you laugh some more “ya looked like you got caught with your hand in the cookie jar” Asgore walks into the house to see what is happening, Toriel is visibly sweating and blushing.

“Toriel! How many times do I have to tell you that whipped cream is terrible for you” _oh, you see what’s happening, it’s like with you and paps about ketchup_

“Not enough times” Toriel mutters

Asgore doesn’t care enough to continue the argument, so he places Chara down onto the couch and starts prepping some tea for everyone. You take some time to look around the place. Most of the basics are in some spot, like the couch, rooms, and stairs. The painting at the top of the stairs is different, showing a nice cup of tea. There are also lots of pictures on the staircase and table. Your pet rock isn’t in it’s normal spot, instead there is a snail in its place. The whole house smells like a freshly baked pie, maybe they got some in their fridge?

You rummage through their fridge, there is a pie, but you should take some later, it’s probably been sitting there a while. So you just pull out a fresh bottle of ketchup.

_hell yeah, it’s practically a party in here_

You take a few gulps of ketchup, while Tori stares you down in… awe? Disgust? Probably both.

“And I thought I was bad.”

“ketchup is the best food to ever grace these lands, **snow** need to judge.” You wink your right eye

“Sorry, it’s just that, Asgore gets mad at me for eating whipped cream, but you’re chugging a condiment.” _guess that makes sense_

“whipped cream ain’t too bad” Toriel’s face lights up at this “why’s he not like you eating it?”

“He says it’s bad for me, I might get a stomach ache but like…” she grabs her belly for effect “I can **stomach** it”

“oh my god.”

“What?”

“asgore just got **creamed** ”

You both break out laughing, the hilarity of a pun is multiplied when you don’t expect it. Asgore walks into the kitchen and asks what we’re laughing about.

“Just tossing around some **sweet** puns, we **whipped** them out cuz we could.” Asgore didn’t get the puns, so he walked away in confusion. You both start laughing even harder. After a few moments of catching our breath we are finally able to talk.

“damn you’re good at that” _she is_

“You’re also pretty good, here” you lends you her hand, and lifts you off of the floor. Soft ass paws.

“geez, you’re as sweet as the whipped cream” She looks at you, eyes unfocused, in a second she comes back into reality

“guess that tea should be cooled down by a lil bit, let’s go get some, huh tori?”

“Y-yeah, we should”

 


	2. Happy funtime

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans messes around with Toriel, Asgore, and Chara, nothing really too bad happens, so savor it while it lasts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The story might seem a little lax at first, but it'll heat up more later. This chapter is only like 3500 words, so it's much shorter than the last one. Also I didn't bother to recheck spelling and grammar, so if it's ass, that's okay.

You and Tori grab some golden flower tea and sit at the table with Asgore. He looks lost in thought, but perks up when he sees us. Chara seems to still be sleeping, one arm hanging off the couch and hair wildly messed up. There’s a pink-colored blanket draped over their entire body, Asgore must of put it on them. They’re mumbling softly, funny how they’re sleeping more than me.

“sup’, asgore, how's the kid doin?”  _ they better be doing good, that’s my ticket out _

“Their doing okay, they have started mumbling and shifting around, is that normal for humans? I just hope they recover okay” Asgore says, a large amount of concern in his voice

“yeah, i hope that too”  _ kinda _

You take a sip of the tea, it’s just how you remember it being. Sweet and smooth. A good combination, Paps used to drink it when he was nervous. It’s still pretty hot, so you put it back down and stare off into space. You still smell pie, butterscotch maybe? Cinnamon, too. You should ask for some, if this Toriel (Asgore?) is as good as baking pies as yours, then goddamn. You’re practically starving here, you haven’t had anything the entire day, not even any Grillby’s. You’re the first to break the silence.

“hey tori, i’m starving here, do ya got anything to eat?”

“Yeah, kinda.”

“what does ‘kinda’ mean?”  _ how do you ‘kinda’ have food to eat? _

“Like uh, we haven’t been by the store for a while, so all we have is ingredients but not actual food.”  _ she looks disappointed in herself _

“then let’s make like some eggs and get  **crackin,’** ya know, do some cookin and shiz.” You lean back on your chair

“Like right now?’ You give her a look of confirmation “Well okay then.” She walks into the kitchen and you follow in shortly afterwards.

You check around the fridge for any good ingredients, but Tori takes over and pulls out ingredients for a pie. Guess she settled on that beforehand, no wonder the place smells like a pie factory.

“Uh, you don’t really have to help,” she pauses to think “I make pies pretty frequently, I got my recipe down well.”

“s’ok, i’ll just standby and chat”  _ was probably just gonna do that anyways _

You start watching her prepare the crust, the ingredients on the side imply it’s a butterscotch-cinnamon pie. She works slow, but with precision, and that's something good when you’re working with pies.

“hey tori, wanna hear something funny?”

“Mmm?”  _ she’s eating some of the whipped cream _

“if a quiche is considered a pie, then i guess we can both make a pie of some sort, thought that was weird.”

“Isn’t a quiche just a savory pie?”

“pretty much”

You continue watching Toriel work on her craft. The crust is pretty much finished, she just needs a filling. Guess it’s the perfect time for a good ol’ game, get to know this goat if i’m gonna be crashing with them for a while.

“ya know, what time it is?”

“Around 1pm Why?”

“nah, not that. it’s the ultimate sans game time, where we ya know, play games and all that shiz.”

“What kind of games? Like questions and stuff?”

“looks like ya get me. gotta get to know you somehow.”  _ time for some rules _ “basically, i ask a question, you ask me one. easy. answer truthfully and no askin’ me weird shit.” You give Tori a playful glare

“Guess those are fair. You going first?”

“yep.”  _ you take some time to think of a good question _ “where did you learn how to make pies from?”

“Actually, I don’t really know.” She shrugs her shoulders “Just something I always was good at doing, the recipe was an old friend’s.”  _ wonder who this old friend is _

“Now Sans, do you have a sibling? If you do, how do they act?”  _ that’s two questions, but i’ll let it slide. _

“yeah, i do his name is papyrus, the coolest dude in the entire underground.” Tori stops working for a second, but immediately resumes “he’s really cool. always happy and trying to make others do their best. he’s practically a walking antidepressant.”

“Huh. Sounds like Asgore.”  _ doesn’t sound like MY asgore _

“what’s your opinion on humans?”

“They’re like wildcards, you never know if they’re good or bad until they actually show it. I’ve had some… bad experiences with one before.”  _ a bad experience could mean anything, wonder if it’s something like my ordeal _

“Heehee, Oh do I have a good question. Have you ever been on a date?” You begin blushing lightly.

You were on a date once, it was in one of the timelines where you actually made it to the surface. You knew it was going to reset soon, so you made the most of what you could do,  **including** asking out Toriel. Honestly, the date went well, you were both obviously attracted to each other, but right after it ended, we got hit by another reset. But there was no way you going to say any of this to ANY Toriel, resets were confusing and I also technically dated the alternate version of the person standing quite literally in front of me. I am NOT gonna say shit.

“y-yeah, once. went okay, but then never saw them again, thought it was weird.”  _ good cover up, i guess i’m bending my own rules _

“I think there’s a little bit more to it than that, you  **bonehead** ,”  _ it was actually a shitty cover up _

“definitely is, i’m just not going to explain it.”  _ tori looks nervous for some reason _

“If you don’t wanna talk about it then that’s okay.”

“guess i’m not talking bout it then.”  _ why did i even mention that i even went on a date before? I should’ve said nothing _

You decide to not ask anymore questions, that’s pretty much all you need answered anyway. The butterscotch-cinnamon pie was nearly finished by the end of the questions, it just needed to have the filling actually inside the pie. Watching Tori cook is mesmerizing, it’s pretty damn skillful. You down the rest of your tea just because you felt like it. To be honest, you’ve lost track of time, it feels like it went by so quick. The pie is already done and in the oven, baking to perfection. Tori is staring deeply at you, and by the time you actually realize, she begins speaking.

“U-uh, sorry if I said something bad earlier, y’know, with the ‘first date’ thing.”  _ that’s why she was quiet _

“you didn’t say anything bad, just didn’t feel like talking.” _ didn’t want to say anything awkward _

“That’s a relief, but anyways, we should go check on that human you brought.”  _ probably should _

You and Tori walk into the living room, only to find Chara still asleep. That’s okay, don’t gotta deal with the brat this second, I still need some time to chill. Just as you set your bony-ass down onto a chair, Chara suddenly jolts upwards and falls off of the couch. You can hear them groaning underneath their blanket, obviously in distress. Asgore walks towards them and peels of the blanket, Chara’s eyelids fluttering open, adjusting to the light of the room. They finally are able to see properly, and when their eyes fall on Asgore, they have no idea what to say.

“What the fuck?” You burst out laughing, that reaction was golden “No seriously… what?” You continue laughing, Asgore takes a few steps back while Chara studies them.

“we might’ve uh, landed in a alternate universe. or something like that.” Chara looks dumbfounded, glancing at Toriel and Asgore, unable to process any words

You get out of your seat to see and talk to them better.

They have finally found the words to speak, “Any ideas on how we  **_got_ ** here, comedian?”  _ their voice has some edge in it _

“not really, we didn’t have much to really go on.”  _ you did have a theory, but you weren’t going to talk about the resets yet _

“Are we stuck here? Because I’m not staying in this shitty ‘alternate universe’” They say ‘alternate universe’ in a mocking way

“that’s the problem, i don’t know if we’re stuck or not.”

“Then  **find** it out! It’s gotta be easy!”  _ fuck off. _

“if it was  _ simple  _ i would’ve found it out already.” You take a step forward and turn off your eyelights

“You don’t scare me, comedian, you’re nothing.”  _ okay, bucko, someone’s gonna have a bad time _

“oh yeah?” You pick them up with blue magic and bring them inches from your face, they look flustered. “do you really think that?” Your left eye pulses with raw magic, Chara definitely looks scared, they struggle in your blue magic but fail to move, you bring them closer to your face to mess with them.

“cuz, buddy, we’re  _ both  _ in this situation, so we  _ both  _ fix it, capisce?” You can feel their warm breath on your skull. They reluctantly nod their head, their face is completely red.

You set them on their feet and don’t even bother to apologize, it gets the message across better. Tori seems to be recollecting on some memories, probably some about a relationship like yours and Charas, maybe she was in one? The room is completely silent besides Chara’s soft breathing, the air feels like it went absolutely still. Seems like my point went across, Chara isn’t trying to be a psychopath for once. Even with this in mind, they’re still the first to speak.

“So what do we do?”  _ their voice is shaking, and quieter, i didn’t scare them too bad, did i? _

“probably research, or just wait for something to happen, i’m a fan of the latter”

“W-we should do research soon, but ugh, I have this horrible headache.”

“yeah, that happened to me too, so i just fell asleep again.”

“There is no way I can fall asleep, not with… just give me some medicine, alright?”

Asgore is three steps ahead of everyone, giving Chara two tablets to swallow, which they did graciously. After being able to actually pay attention, they smell the scent of the butts pie that is cooking.

“Hey, is someone cooking pie or something?” Chara asks

“It’s in the oven right now, won’t be done for a while.” Tori says from the table

“Cool, cool.” Chara sits on the couch and sighs

“Wanna just stick on a movie or something? I’m bored” Chara complains

“seems like a nice idea, but it’s definitely not as cool as ‘cd’” Chara groans and says to ‘not answer that,’ Tori does anyway

“Uh, sorry for not knowing… but what is ‘cd’” Tori asks, confusion in her voice, my grin somehow gets even bigger

“see deez nuts” Tori’s face flushes a deep shade of pink, while Chara gets up from the couch and bangs their head into wall.

“Why” bang “the” bang “fuck” bang “are” bang “you” bang “so” bang “immature.” bang

While this is happening, I’m laughing my ass off, or uh, lack thereof. Tori gives you a glare and throws her face into her hands to hide her blushing face. Asgore doesn’t even know how to react to the situation, he just groans at the joke and doesn’t say anymore. Chara finally stops banging their head and plops themselves onto the couch again.

“so uh, what movie are we watching?” You ask

“SCREW THE MOVIES!” Chara yells at me and flips the middle finger

“We have board games!” Asgore offers enthusiastically

“Board games  _ are _ acceptable” Chara considers

“then whip out a few and let’s do some playing”

Asgore runs into his room and pulls out a large variety of board games. He said it’s best if we give suggestions on what to play first, then vote from there.

“Monopoly.” Chara simply states

“Scrabble is one of my favorites” Tori says

“Obviously Uno is the best game there is!” Asgore proudly declares

The other 3 look at you expectantly, you crack your knuckle bones before you tell your answer.

“strip poker”

Tori’s blush is even more prominent than it was before, so she retreats to her paws once more. Chara actually laughs for once, not some sickening demonic laugh, but an actual genuine laugh, while Asgore has no idea what’s funny, so he just sits there awkwardly. After everything has settled down, you speak again.

“so are we settling for strip poker?”

“We are NOT playing strip poker.” Toriel squeaks

“Actually Uno  _ does _ sound pretty fun right now.” Chara agrees with Asgore

“Guess we’re playing Uno.” Asgore begins shuffling the cards and serving them. My hand doesn’t look very good, so I add a little “extra boost.”

“aw sweet, six draw 4’s, i basically won this, so everyone should forfeit.”

“There’s only four draw 4’s, how do you have six?” Tori asks, so I unzip my jacket to reveal my hidden stash of draw 4’s

“Have you had those in there the entire time?” Chara asks, dumbfounded

“yeah, pretty much, never bothered to clean it out.”  _ nah, i just kept it in my jacket for something like this _

“Just no cheating…” Asgore mumbles

 

\-------------------

 

After a few games, Asgore goes to do his shift of sentry duty, so the rest of us stopped playing and are now just lying on the couch, doing nothing. I’m sitting on the left side of the couch, right next to Tori. As much as I like to be lazy, I have no real responsibilities in this world, so I have nothing to be lazy about, ya know? And  _ goddamn _ am I hungry… OH WAIT.

“yo, tori, about that pie…”

“I took it out around 30 minutes ago, it should be okay to eat.”  _ Chara looks excited _

“guess i’m getting some, want me to get ya guys some too?” The two both nod their heads

As you trudge over to the kitchen, you’re hit with the heavenly smell of pie. You can hardly wait to dig in to your slice. You cut the pie into eighths, and deposit one slice on each plate for now, along with a fork. After seeing the pie, you remember to grab the entire whipped cream can to give to Tori, as she’ll probably get it anyway. As you walk into the living room, you can feel Chara’s eyes on you.

“ya guys gonna eat at the couch or the table?” Tori points at the table

You start putting the plates at the table, along with a fork. Holding the whipped cream in your hand, you toss it to Tori and she immediately begins spraying it into her mouth, to Chara’s disgust.

“How the hell can you even have that by itself, it’s like with Sans and ketchup.”

“I like the flavor, and the texture of it, it’s nice.”

“Whatever rows your  **goat** ” Chara’s face immediately contorts to disgust when they realised that they made a pun themselves

“oh my god” You pretend to wipe a tear from your eye “my baby has grown up so fast”

“Shut up”

“doesn’t matter, pie’s served and shiz, get over here.” Toriel and Chara both get out of the couch nearly simultaneously and walk towards the table

Weirdly, Chara sits next to you, but you don’t think much of it. The perfect slice of pie is awaiting you patiently, you can’t wait to eat it, so you grab your fork and dig in. You’re greeted by a perfect balance between crust and filling, the crust being just the right amount of soft and crunchy, while the filling not being completely overpowering. You moan because of how good it is, all you want to do is scarf it all down, but you hold yourself back. The other two, on the other hand, don’t even bother to slow down, both of them nearly done with their first slice.

After just a few bites, you can feel your energy be replenished, you really needed something to eat. You polish off the rest of the pie, savoring the delicious blend of spices and ingredients. After glancing at the other’s plates, you notice that they have gotten seconds, so you do the same. The next slice is just as good as the first, if not better. You decide to eat this one much quicker, not holding back on how much faster you wanna eat it. Even with you eating fast, you’re still the last to finish, the other two talking to each other.

To be honest, you could totally fall asleep right now, full of warm pie (kinda) and comfortable, but you don’t. You just start to notice Chara saying your name and waving a fork.

“Hehehe Sans, oh my god, you look so dumb in that ridiculous jacket, or coat? Joat?” They say while slurring half of their words, and then proceeding to giggle uncontrollably. You shoot Tori a look and they shrug their shoulders.

“They have been acting like this since they ate the pie, but I’m sure it’s just the medicine.” Tori answers your look

“ **Snow** need to talk like I’m a cancer patient, that’s just  **cold** .” Chara slurs and puns

“this is a side of you that i never thought i would ever see.”  _ since when did they even consider puns? _

“Shut your mouth up, you sexy skeleton, you.” Chara gives you a playful glare, your face heating up

“so when you’re high, you like puns and act flirty, huh, good to know.”

“I’m right here you  **bonehead** ” They take a moment to giggle “I meant what I said, you’re hot as  _ fuck”  _ They continue to slur over their words, you remain in eye contact with them

Chara abruptly gets up from their chair, almost stumbling onto the floor, and starts walking towards me. They grab the sleeve of my hoodie to prevent a teleport, they tug me closer to them.

“Doesn’t this seem familiar?” They say inches away from my face, their voice filled with determination, or was it desperation? they say “I want you so badly, Sans.” They whisper into your ear, proceeding to lick it, causing shivers to go down your spine. Your body is frozen, you can’t even find the strength to move.

“Not going to do anything?” they whisper. “You were always so  _ lazy, _ ” They like your ear again for emphasis, “but my  _ favorite _ .” They place their other arm on your left thigh bones, softly caressing it. This pushes you off the edge and you call for help.

“t-tori, help.” Toriel appears near my side and drags a giggling Chara away.

Your face is practically burning at this point, Chara grins at you smugly. Tori looks… kinda mad, or jealous? What do they even have to be jealous of? Did Chara really mean what they said, or was it the medicine that was talking? You definitely didn’t reciprocate their feelings if what they said was actually what they felt. You give of both them a confused look, hopefully they don’t take it the wrong way or something.

Chara looks like they passed out on the floor, I pick them up with blue magic and set them on the couch, Tori drapes the blanket over them. We both lock eye contact, both utterly confused on what happened. Tori gestures between me and Chara, I just shrug my shoulders, I’m actually genuinely confused on what happened. Tori seems to have a few questions.

“What the fuck just happened?”  _ me and you are on the same  _ **_goat_ ** _ , heh _

“i’m going to be honest, no clue.”

“Did they just confess their love or something?”  _ i have no idea, bud _

“maybe, they probably didn’t even mean to say any of that.”

“Probably…”  _ tori is thinking pretty hard about this _

It’s only 5pm, four more hours until Asgore gets back, and you have pretty much no idea what to do. Go to Grillby’s? Nah, you already ate, play board games? Boring, and you can’t even watch tv if Chara is taking up the couch. Maybe Tori would have a good idea.

“i guess with the kid out, what do we even do now?"

Toriel contemplates what to tell you, “House tour?” you repeat ‘house tour’ at Tori

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my legs
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> their broken


	3. Everyone has problems

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> House tour, grillbz, drunkenness, quiches. p much what happens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Put a good amount of time on this, even if its a little bit shorter than it probably should be.

“i seriously hope that me and the kid aren’t messing up your uh, lifestyle or somethin’.” You say while Toriel guides you up the stairs.

“You guys aren’t anything bad! Honestly we needed a pick-me-up of some sort.” _she sounds a little shocked that i would say that_

As you reach the top of the stairs, you notice a bathroom that you didn’t seem to see when you first walked in. It’s situated in between the two bedrooms. It’s not very useful to you because, uh, im a skeleton, but Chara could definitely use it. You stand in front of a door, in your house, this is where Papyrus’ room would be. Wonder who’s this one will be?

“So, this is Asgore’s room, it’s pretty much the cleanest place in the house.” She turns the door knob and takes a few steps inside the room.

Tori was right, the place is pretty damn clean, no dirt or dust or anything. There seems to be a one-person bed, it could fit only one person at a time, if this were bigger, you would make a joke about it being  **king** -sized. There also seems to be a couple of plants on the desk near the bed. You notice the water sausage plant, and have flashbacks of your “hotdog selling career.” Nothing else seems too interesting, there’s a computer and a closet, but that’s not too cool. After noticing the computer, you realize that you should set up an account on the Undernet (or whatever this universe called it). You whip out your phone, and set up an account for Undernet. For some reason your phone connects to this Underground’s wifi network, it’s weird but handy. Tori peeks over your shoulders to see what you’re doing.

“Setting up an account for Undernet huh? I can give you my account name if you wanna follow me.” She gives you her name and you add her as a friend

“sweet, i already got a load of friends and i’ve only been here a day.”

“Your name is ‘snas,’ really?”

“your name is ‘toriiiiii’ so i’m pretty sure that yours is worse.” Tori gives you a warm smile

“Okay enough with this room, we have two more to go.” You both walk out of the room and make your way into the bathroom.

“I’m pretty sure that you’re not going to be using this place much, but you might use the cleaning supplies underneath the sink.” She pulls open the cabinet to show me the items inside

“yeah, i might use some of the cleaning stuff, but that’s about it”

You survey the bathroom. There is a shower, sink, and a toilet. Just the basic bathroom stuff, there’s a plant right next to the sink, what up with Asgore and plants? Toriel notices that you’ve been staring into blank space and brings the tour to the next area. You’re standing in front of the last door of the house, using process of elimination, this is Tori’s room. If she’s anything like me, the place will be a wreck and a half.

“S-so, uh, last room of the tour, my room.” _she looks nervous, i should mess with her to lighten the mood_

“ooh, scandalous, gettin’ in your room already.” _now she’s nervous and blushing._ _~~cute~~  _ _great._

“Y-yeah…” Toriel looks away from me

She pushes open the door to reveal the room, blackened in darkness. Her paw reaches for the light switch, showing me what the room truly looks like. As expected, it doesn’t look too well. There's a beaten-down drawer with a colorful lamp sitting on top of it, the cord isn’t even plugged in. A good portion of the room is taken up by a gigantic mattress, it somehow has a sheet covering it’s top, with a huge stack of blankets at its end. You barely notice a sticky note above the mattress, it doesn’t strike you as too odd, so you don’t go to see what it says. In the corner, you can see lots of books in a box, from what you can observe, they’re mainly cooking and science. The closet on the left side of the room seems to have some clothes leaking out, as well as some other things in the mix.

“Ah, s-sorry it’s so messy” She hustles over to the closet and pushes a few items back inside “J-just wasn’t expecting visitors anytime soon.”

“it isn’t too bad tori, my room back at my house was worse.” _it was_

She doesn’t listen, continuing to shove objects back into the closet, only when was the closet actually closable does she bother to look up.

“S-sorry…”

“shush. i don’t care how dirty you think your room is, because this ain’t even close to dirty.” This seems to make Toriel feel a little better

There’s actually something that you’ve been thinking of, where are you gonna sleep? The floor or something? You wouldn’t mind the floor, you do it pretty much everyday, but the pains on your back is gonna suck. I could kick Chara off of the couch and be a huge dick, but i’m not gonna do that, even to them. Actually you might have a solution.

“actually, your room helped me fix one of our problems.”

“Oh?”

“yeah, the sleeping situation.” You never would’ve believed that you could see Tori blush so brightly, you repeat your words to yourself and realise how it must of sounded to them. Heat starts crawling up your cheekbones.

“u-uh not like t-that, i just don’t wanna sleep on the floor.” _fuck, now i’m stuttering_

The two of you awkwardly shift around and avoid eye contact, it’s even worse with your face looking like a blueberry. You cough into your hand so we can put our minds on other things that are NOT accidental flirting. Toriel seems too into their thoughts to speak, I wonder what they’re thinking about. She seems if she made up her mind on something, as she looks you in the eyes and begins speaking, both of you still with a light blush on your faces.

“Um, y-yeah, you can sleep in h-here. In my room.” She mumbles the ending part, maybe so I don’t hear it?

“c-cool, tori.” You gesture out into the hallway, both of you step out of the room

Chara is still asleep, bundled up in their blankets. Nothing new has seemed to have gone down in the living room while we were doing the house tour.

“want me to move the kid to your room for now?”

“Yeah, you should do that.”

You take a shortcut to Chara, picking them up with blue magic. They moan softly at the sensation of it, kinda weird reaction but you’re not going to question it. You take another shortcut to Tori’s room and drop them off onto the mattress, draping one of the many blankets near the bed onto them. When you leave the room, you see Tori turning on the TV to a random channel.

You set yourself next to Tori, they continue to mindlessly flip through the channels, nothing interesting seems to be on right now. Literally 90% of the channels are just mettaton reruns, and mettaton is ass. You decide to get comfortable on the couch, maybe fall asleep to pass the time, it’s not like anything important is going on. The cushions are so comfortable, you’re surrounded by warmness and delicious scents, you close your eyes and feel the sweet embrace of sleep.

Or you would’ve, if someone didn’t quite literally kick open the front door.

You whole body jolts upwards, nearly falling off of the couch, Tori has the same reaction as you, you two glance at each other, confused. You take a look at who could’ve kicked open the goddamn _front door_. Of course, it’s Undyne, and she acts completely the same as normal, or maybe she doesn’t.

“Yo Nerd! Where’s Asgore!” Undyne practically shouts

“On sentry duty…? You made his schedule, not me!” _tori seems mad, maybe she doesn’t like undyne?_

“Ah crap, I hate when I forget he has weird times on Wednesdays.” Undyne pauses “Who’s your friend?” Undyne tilts her head at me

“just a cool skeleton, me and tori felt like hanging out today.” _didn’t wanna reveal what my name is if accidentally someone thinks i’m this universe’s sans_

“Huh, you look familiar. Are you related to the king?” _who the hell is the king?_

“nah, i’m not. as i said, i’m just a skeleton, ain’t got no siblings or anything.” Undyne looks at you as if you’re lying (which you are) but doesn’t push it

“Well okay then” She studies you again “I’m off to find Asgore. HE BETTER HAVE NOT FORGOT ABOUT OUR PRACTICE TODAY!!!! NGAHHH!!!!!” The sudden shift in tone causes you to tense up, Undyne sprints out of the house and out into Snowdin

You both stare at the door, both still kinda shocked that it was relaxing one second, and loud and annoying the next. Toriel is the first get up from the couch, she closes the door a little bit harder than needed. She flops back down onto the couch and sighs. You both continue to flip through the channels, she sets it on a random mettaton movie, probably a musical or a drama.

Back at your universe, Undyne randomly breaking down your door was a common occurrence, but you weren’t expecting it to happen in this one. Maybe later you can get to know this Undyne, from what you have seen so far, she’s pretty much the same. Now that you think about it, you’re grateful you and Tori came down here when you did, if Chara was still down here, they would’ve been skewered.

“Ugh, everything that’s on sucks. What do we even do?” Toriel complains

“i was probably gonna go asleep, or maybe go to grillby’s.”

“We could go to Grillby’s, but I kinda wanna mess with Asgore when he’s on his shift.” _that does sound fun_

“let’s go do that then. it’s better than shitty mettaton movies.” _paps watches these so much it makes my nonexistent-ears bleed_

“actually, wait up, isn’t he going to training with undyne?” Toriel just realises this

“Welp, guess i’ll hit you up on your offer to Grillby’s.” She shrugs her shoulders

“yeah, we should get ready, we can go in like 5 minutes.” You zip up your hoodie and check if you have enough gold in you pockets, which you do

Tori retreats into her room, not even bothering to close the door. In a couple of minutes she reemerges in a new shirt and pants, she tosses you a clean white shirt to replace your old one.

You change your shirt on the spot, it’s not like it’s hiding anything there anyway, just a bunch of ribs. Tori is blushing slightly when you look back up.

“Okay, I guess we’re ready. Should get going.” She says while going down the stairs

You zip your hoodie back up and walk towards the door. You turn the knob and walk outside into the chilly Snowdin air. It’s calm, there is no noise, just you and the world. Today has been… weird to say the least, you landed in an alternate dimension, and the first people you met just took you to their house and messed around with you. Now you’re going to be going to Grillby’s with someone who is so familiar yet so different, you can actually see a little bit of yourself in them. Why can’t you shake the feeling that this is a little more than a quick get-Grillby’s-and-go? It doesn’t really matter, you’re craving some burgers and maybe a drink or two, you just need some time to wind down and not worry about how you’re going to leave this dimension.

Tori joins you outside in the snow, seeming lost in thought. She collects herself and begins guiding you to Grillby’s. The walk is silent between the two of you, the passerby’s are chattering quietly. As you approach your destination, you notice the differences between the place you know and this one. This place seems to be more welcoming, there are more plants on the outside, and the lights seem to be slightly brighter. The interior of the bar is exactly as you remember it, around half the canine unit also seems to also be residing in the bar. You and Tori sit in the seats at the front.

“Hey Grillbz! Can me and my friend order some grub!” Grillby walks over to you two, he takes out a notepad and looks at the both of you expectantly.

“I’ll have a burger and a milkshake, that’s it.” She tilts her head to look at you

“i’ll uh, have a burger too, and do ya got any alcohol?”

“He has some, there’s this cherry drink I usually get, I would recommend it.” _guess that sounds good_

“yeah, i’ll get that cherry thingy too.” _maybe a stronger drink would be more ideal, but i don’t really care right now_

As you watch Grillby take off into the kitchen, you decide to strike up a conversation with Tori.

“so, do you come in here often?” _basic enough_

“I used to, I stop by here every few weeks.”

“why though? something happen?” _this seems important_

Toriel looks sad, whatever happened was probably serious. It takes her a minute to respond to your question.

“Did your human ever… hurt anyone you love?” The question catches you off guard, you don’t how to answer that

“...yeah.”

“Did they mess around with something they shouldn’t? Time perhaps?” Tori’s eyes are unfocused, she really need to get this off of her chest

“...” _are they alluding to the resets?_

“Can I tell you something?” You give Tori a nod of confirmation “Around 6 months ago, a human came by, their name was Frisk.” Your entire body freezes up, but you know for a fact that this isn’t the same Frisk as the one you know

“They killed everyone, even if they offered mercy. At the end, I had to fight them, but I died with all of my friends. It didn’t really matter to me anyway, it was all just going to be **reset**. What does **resetting** mean to you, Sans?” _holy fuck. guess they know about those too._

“it means a whole lot to me. seeing everybody i know die right in front of you really makes a change of mind.” Your eyelights involuntary turn off

“Huh, so I guess my hunch was right.” She pauses to think of her next words “When did they last… you know, kill everybody.” _last timeline._

“it happened the timeline before this one. i just gave up, there was nothing really to live for, you know? except those little moments with my brother and tori behind the door.”

“I felt the same way. It just gets boring, doing the same few things each day. How did you end up in my timeline anyway?” You think back on your theory from earlier

“at the beginning of a new reset, the kid proposed to me to be a better person. i didn’t really believe them, but i was willing to let them try. i was going to take them to grillby’s, but they reset at the same time as my shortcut.” Toriel seems to be thinking about your theory

“but that’s just the theory i came up with in like a minute, anything could’ve happened.”

Toriel sighs, “It’s great that somebody knows about the resets besides a soulless flower.” You nod your head in agreement

“i don't even know what to think. today’s been a roller coaster. it feels like it’s going by so quick, so many things are happening and i don’t think i can handle it.” _why does it have to be me that has to face all of this?_

“...Yeah, I’m thinking like that too.”

You and Tori sit in silence for a few minutes to collect your thoughts, Grillby walks by and drops off the food. In all honesty, you hope Tori can keep it together, they look relieved to have all of that information off of their chest, but now that they know that you’ve been through the same things might be hard for them to handle.

“so uh, what happened to your human? they just leave?” _you’re pretty curious about what happened to them_

“Yeah, they did. They killed a few monsters and the king, then just… left.” Tori takes a sip of her milkshake “Isn’t it sad when the best ending is the one that no one would want? We have no human souls left, we’re all going to be stuck down here forever.” She looks off into the distance

“it does suck… but that doesn’t mean it matters anymore, does it?” Tori considers this

“I used to think that, but now I’m just waiting for a reset that never comes. It's torture, all of my hard work could just be erased.” Tori can’t control her emotions, a few tears rolling down her cheek.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Sorry…” She wipes her tears from her eyes

You crack. She has **nothing** to be sorry for, you can tell easily that she is just beating herself up over something she can’t change. Does she blame herself for the King’s death, for other monsters death’s, or even the lost of the souls? She seems to keep a lot of information hidden, did something else happen besides this?

“you have nothing to be sorry for, tori. it isn’t your fault and you know it.” Tori looks doubtful, but nods back

“now c’mon, we got some burgers and i’m feeling like gettin’ drunk today.”

“I can agree with that.” She signals for Grillby to come over “Can I get my ‘special drink’? I seriously need to forget some things.” Grillby gives a thumbs up and begins mixing a drink, from what you observe, it has a load of alcohol in it.

You start to realize that you haven’t even taken a sip of your own drink. You bring the glass to your mouth and take a small sip. It has a strong taste of cherry, with an after taste of mix of other fruits, you can pretty much taste the alcohol in it. That’s okay with you because you want to get a drunk as you possibly can. You take a big gulp of it, the effects of alcohol practically already at work.

The burger you ordered is looking pretty tempting, so you take a huge bite out of it. It tastes near exactly as you remember it back at home, juicy and full of flavor. You take a few more bites, savoring the delicious masterpiece, taking sips of your drink in between. After eating half of your burger, you take a glance at Tori’s area. Her burger is nearly finished and the ‘special drink’ is at least half done. I swear if I have to carry a passed-out goat back to their house, what would Asgore think? Or even Chara?

“Hee hee, Sans,” You look Tori in the eyes “What’s the difference between a well dressed guy on a unicycle and a guy with rags on a bike?” You shrug “At- **tire**.” You both dissolve into giggling fits, drunk puns are the best

“hey, hey, alright, i got one, why don’t scientists trust atoms?” Toriel looks at you expectantly “cause they make up everything.” Again, you both begin laughing, kinda loudly actually

You spend the rest of the time at the bar with your new friend, cracking jokes and getting drunk.

 

\-----------------

 

“an’ so, i take a shore-cut, and scare the shit outta the kid, the look on their face was **cutting me up** , then they threatened me and were tote-a-lly glaring **knives**.” You slur over your words, Tori gives a drunken snort

“Stop…” another snort “You’re **killing me**.”

Now that you think about it, how long have you been here in Grillby’s? You whip out your phone, it reads 8PM, you can barely even read it, everything seems to swirl underneath your vision. Asgore was supposed to get back at 9, so now would be a good time to get back.

“What time is it, lazybones?"

“s’ 8, we should be leaving soon.”

“Let’s get goin’ then.” Tori pulls her hoodie up, and jumps off of the stool

When Tori landed, she couldn’t balance herself and nearly immediately fell into the floor with a loud ‘thud’. Grillby cracks a smile.

“F-fuck.” _oooh she said a swear_

You let out a quiet snicker, the fall was pretty funny. You get out of your chair with only some challenge, but you handled it well enough. You loom over Tori, smiling smugly.

“aw, does someone need a **hand**?” You pull off your hand for effect

“Yes, now pick me up ya idiot.” You oblige and pick them up bridal style, they blush slightly

“k, now we leave.” you begin walking out of the bar, you make it out into the cold snow

“Hee hee, am I your princess or something?” _what?_

“maybe” You continue walking

“Am I a sexy princess?” _what??_

“maybe???”

“Oh my god he thinks I’m sexy!” She covers her face with her paws

You decide to play along “where's my tori and where have you taken her. all i could find is this ridiculously hot goat.” She presses her paws into her face even harder. ~~cute~~.

“Ssssssstop…..” she says in distress

“the mighty prince sans never stops when it comes to true love.”

“Uggggggggggh” She groans

“oh, looks like we’re here.”

You turn the knob (strategically, mind you) and walk into the welcoming home. Everything in the house seems to be in order, or from what you can remember. You walk over to the stairs and quickly realize the challenge you have to face.

_there aren’t that many, i can take a few goddamn stairs_

You place one foot onto the first stair. _So far so good._ The rest of the journey seems like the hardest this you have done in your life, but even with that in mind you somehow get your other foot up a step. The floor seems to be spinning, it's hard to concentrate, let alone actually place a foot down in the correct spot. Tori’s breath is warm against your bones, you accidentally pulled her in too close, but you don’t bother to change the position, It’s pretty comfortable for the both of you. You slowly pace yourself up the stairs, finally making it to its peak, you deserve a trophy for this monumental feat. You walk your way over to Tori’s room, opening the door and switching on the light. It looks exactly the same as you left it, you kinda felt like it would look a little bit different, but it doesn’t. Chara seems to still be asleep, the blankets are thoroughly tangled, so is Chara themselves. You snicker at the scene in front of you, it looks ridiculous.

“oh yeah, i’m sleeping in your room. nearly forgot bout that.”

“Yeah, sleepy **bones**.” she winks at you, a small blush climbing up your cheek

Just then, you realize that Chara is still in the bed that you and Tori are sleeping in. There is absolutely no way that you could take them _down_ the stairs, if you trip or something, somebody will be hurt. Fuck it, i’ll just move them to the wall side of the bed, and then climb in.

Using blue magic, you slowly move Chara next to the wall.

“hey tori, am i gonna be in the middle or are you?” _no response, she must be asleep already_

You aren’t much of a person to move too much in their sleep, so you opt to take the middle of the mattress. You gently place Tori on the left side of the mattress, you climb in on the middle. Using your magic, you grab two gigantic blankets and place them over the both of us, the blankets smell kinda like strawberries, surrounding you in a pleasant scent. The window is slightly ajar, bringing in a nice breeze. Your vision starts to fade into black, all of your senses focusing on the calming atmosphere.

 

\----------------

 

_“SANS! I’VE RECENTLY BEEN WATCHING COOKING SHOWS, MAINLY METTATON BUT THAT IS NOT THE POINT! I WANT TO BECOME AN AMAZING CHEF! A MASTER OF THE CULINARY ARTS, MAYBE THEN WILL I HIT DOUBLE DIGITS ON UNDERNET! I’M ONLY 15 FOLLOWERS AWAY!” Papyrus tells me_

_“BUT THAT’S NOT THE POINT! I DECIDED IN ORDER TO DETERMINE MY LEVEL OF EXPERTISE, I SHALL COMPETE IN A COOK OFF WITH YOU!”_

_“cool bro, whadda we cooking?”_

_“FOR ME, SPAGHETTI! FOR YOU… I DON’T KNOW! PICK WHATEVER, BROTHER!” Papyrus sounds excited_

_You both start working on your food dishes, you’re making a quiche, pretty much the only thing you know how to make. Papyrus is literally smashing his tomatoes with his hand, juice splattering all over his battle body. He adds random herbs and spices to the sauce in hope that they will actually add to the flavor, which they don’t. Your quiche is coming along quite nicely, you already had a premade crust on hand, so the filling was you really had to make, and that itself is easy enough._

_Somehow Papyrus burnt his noodles, how you may ask? By not even adding water to the pot, he says that the “crispiness will add to the flavor,” which all it will do is make it taste like ass, so I guess it does add to the flavor. You already tossed your quiche in the oven, so you’re just waiting for it to finish cooking up._

_A few minutes pass, and you grab your quiche out of the oven to let it cool. A few more minutes pass by, and Papyrus declares that “it is time for the showdown between two godlike creations.” More like godlike creation versus their pet hamster._

_“SANS! IS YOUR EGGY PIE FINISHED?”_

_“yeah bro, lemme get a taste of the spaghetti.”_

_Describing Papyrus’ spaghetti is a difficult job. The noodles are nearly completely blackened and straight. The sauce is 25% herbs and spices, with the actual tomato sauce somehow having a jelly-like consistency. It smells like every restaurant in the world decided to combine into one location and serve their respective foods there._

_You take a bite anyway, using all of your willpower, your face doesn’t react to the horrid taste entering your mouth._

_“it’s p good.” what a bold lie_

_Papyrus takes a small section of your quiche, quickly taking the bit into his mouth._

_“SUGARY SUBSTANCES DO NOT GO INTO A SAVORY DISH! THIS DOESN’T EVEN TASTE LIKE EGG! AS JUDGE, I HEREBY DISQUALIFY YOU, YOU WERE NOT UP FOR THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING A MASTER CHEF LIKE ME! NYEHEHEH!” my quiche was godlike, how did it lose to burnt noodles and juice from a septic tank?_

_“well damn, better get rid of this nasty quiche then.” You grab it and shortcut to Waterfall_

_This is your favorite spot in Waterfall, a lone bench near the passive water. It’s calming here, literally no one comes here, so you have no chances of running into someone. You take a deep breath in, and place your quiche underneath the bench in hopes of maybe someone else finding it and enjoying it for what it’s worth._

_As you’re looking at the quiche, the world fades into darkness. You have no other things to dream about for the remainder of your calming sleep, it warms you down to the very core of your soul._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter wasn't as heavy on emotions as i wanted it to be, but it's good enough for now.


	4. Breaking point

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sans is sick of this shit

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> finally some emotions, i wrote them like trash so it isn't y'know, good. Some non-con takes place during the beginning, go to the wall of asterisks if ya wanna skip it, it isn't full-blown smut, but it's something. Might do a separate POV for Chara, it seems like it would be interesting.

You awake to the soothing scent of strawberries, you almost want to fall back asleep again. Human alcohol would’ve given you a hangover, but monster alcohol doesn’t give you any after effects besides, magic depletion for a few hours and y’know, getting drunk, so you’re feeling pretty good right now. You open your eyes to be greeted by a dark room, a sliver of light peeking through the curtains. There is a weight pressed against your chest, so glance down… oh my god. How the hell did I not notice this when I first woke up. Chara’s head is resting right below your neck, one of her legs is thrown over one of your own. Her arm loosely grips your sleeve, preventing you from a shortcut, not as you could even do one if you tried.

You struggle, but the resistance is futile, she pulls you even closer than before. Her head snuggles deeper into the crook of your neck, the soft breathing is highly sensitive on your bones. You’re trapped in Chara’s grasp, it’s going to be hard to fall asleep with them hugging your rib and half-straddling you. Your memory flashes back to yesterday when Chara said some things about… being their favorite. For some reason, it feels weird to think that, you are Chara’s favorite out of all the resets. Huh. You faintly remember their eyes looking at you intently during the “scene,” maybe they were expecting something, like hell you were going to give them anything. Maybe this ties into what your current situation, is it a dream they’re having? Faint noises are coming from them, so maybe something is happening between the two of you, but it’s more like just Chara.

Using a little bit more strength than last time, you try to struggle free again, but Chara has a death grip on your entire body. You swear you heard a growl emit from them. Guess I’m still stuck in Chara’s forced cuddling session. The ceiling seems really interesting right about now, there’s that sticky note that you forgot to read from yesterday. Adjusting to the darkness of the room is a difficult task for you, but it’s manageable. You can barely read what it says on it, at least the handwriting is nice. The note reads

_“no more resets”_

Oh. It’s there to remind Tori that the resets have ended, and when she wakes up, she won’t have to worry. I seriously hope that she isn’t having any nightmares about her previous encounters with their human, I know that I had quite a few of them myself.

Chara’s breathing becomes quicker and shallower, they must be having some really weird dream. The hand on your arm tightens, it doesn’t really hurt, it’s actually pretty gentle, so you leave it on there. All of a sudden, Chara shuffles around while still asleep, positioning herself practically on top of you. Your face is pretty much a blueberry at this point, a few beads of sweat forming at your forehead. At the further inspection of Chara’s face, you can see a small smile on their lips, this could mean one of two things. One, they’re just messing with me to get a reaction, two, they’re doing this in their sleep on accident. Both of those assumptions are not only embarrassing but also just kinda weird, so you don’t look too much into it.

It’s obvious you cannot move them without your magic, so you opt to just try to fall back asleep until this is all sorted out, if only you could see the look on their face when they wake up. Closing your eyes, you drift off into dreamland.

 

\-----------------

 

No dreams occur while you were sleeping, you only really slept about an extra couple of hours, but you savored it while it lasted. You would’ve slept for longer, but you were awakened by shifting on your ribcage, _oh shit that’s chara._ You crack your eyes only open a sliver, being able to see Chara blushing… pretty damn furiously. If I was caught in the same situation, I guess I would react that way too.

Fully opening your eyes, you smile kinda smugly at Chara. They notice that you’re awake and struggle to find the correct words to explain themselves. Their eyes lock up with yours, the deep crimson of their eyes look pretty nice actually. Chara bites the bottom of her lip, no idea _why_ she does this, but she does.

“U-uh, I-I-I, fuck.” She’s at loss for words “S-s-sorry, for uuh, _cuddling you._ I-If that’s the right word to explain it.” Her voice is shaky, she hasn’t even moved her position yet

“it’s okay bud. i’m just wondering **why** it happened.” You add a little bit of bite into your voice, that might get them to tell you

“I-I don’t know Sans, it just happened. It won’t happen again! You can trust me, right? Just…” She looks away from you “Just don’t hurt me…” _fuck._

It takes you a second to process what she said. She thought you were going to hurt her? Why would she even consider that something you would do? In all of the timelines, you _only_ attacked at the end of a genocide run, never any other time, they didn’t deserve the judgment if they haven’t gotten so much LV.

“i ain’t gonna hurt you, kiddo.”

“Why though? Don’t you wanna? I know I deserve it, I’ve been bad.” _kid, seriously, no._

“maybe you did some uh, horrible things in the past, but i don’t hold grudges, kid.” Chara lets out a breath of air and lays their head back onto you, to your surprise

“I needed to hear that, mind if I lay here longer?” _honestly this is kinda weird, but if it helps them then i guess it’s okay_

“you can, just uh, what were you dreaming about?” _they were acting funny, i need to know this_

“U-uh…” They pause “S-something…”

“something what?” _explain, buddy_

“It doesn’t matter! I just wanna be with you right now.” She snuggles into the crook of your neck

 _why are they acting so… attracted? what’s up with her?_  “heh, sure kid.”

She lets out a pleased noise and promptly falls asleep. At this point, you would normally at least _try_ to get a few extra minutes of rest, but you don’t even bother to try. A plethora of things are swimming within your mind. Apparently, Chara is into… cuddling gross skeletons, and for some reason you can’t wrap your head around that fact. Also she was scared of you, for reasons that you can’t decipher, shouldn’t you be the one scared of them? They had the capacity to kill me at any point in the night, but instead they chose not to do anything, I guess they ARE sticking to that proposal. Speaking of which, you haven’t really heard from Frisk ever since the previous timeline in your universe, did something happen to them, or do they not care enough? It’s easy to tell if Frisk is the one in control because their eyes turn blue again, but to be honest, you’re used to the red coloring.

What you remember of Frisk is that they don’t really care about anything. They never even told everyone their name until the end of their game, they never intended to stick around long. When people asked for their opinion on things, they were blunt and rude, but that went away over time. The first time they even went through the Underground they never wanted to kill anyone, which you were glad for, but after so many resets, they cracked. They dusted one monster, and then it all went down from there. You remember the first time you fought them, the look on their face was something you couldn’t ever forget, all of the Karma they gained hit them full force. When you tried to spare them, they even accepted, but didn’t reset after you killed them, which was a shame. Not even to mention their behavior, flirting with nearly every goddamn monster at some point, thank god they didn’t try to flirt with you. You’ve always suspected them to have a dark past, which is why they act so unusually, but they would never even hint towards what their previous life was like.

A few minutes trickle past while you think, Tori stretches in the bed, alerting you that she is awake. She smiles at you warmly and goes to say something, but is interrupted when she sees Chara. Now a look of confusion is plastered on her face, you decide to speak up.

“yeah, i got no idea also.”

“What do you mean?” She whispers

“i kinda just woke up and had the kid snuggling against me.”

“Oh. Something happen to them?” She eyes the both of your suspiciously

“maybe, i thought that it might be a dream they had or something.” _not going to mention the possibility that Chara likes you and is using this as an excuse to get closer._

“I’m tired as hell.” She stretches “Wanna go make some coffee?” She offers

“i would say yes, but i’m trapped by a wild human.”

“Just pull em’ off or wake em’ up.”

“yeah, i’ll wake them up, but first, here.” You toss Tori your phone “take a picture so i can tease em’ with it later.” Tori takes a picture of you two, snickering a little bit

“k, now walk out of the room so the kid doesn’t know that you know what’s happening.”

“Sure, I’ll get the coffee ready for you guys.” She hops out of bed and puts on a pair of slippers, proceeding to leave the room

You try to shake Chara awake, they groan and press further into you, an arm snaking up your shirt. You let out a gasp of surprise, you weren’t thinking _that_ was going to happen, Chara murmurs something in her slumber. Shaking Chara once again, their eyes fluttering open, adjusting to the light.

“Hey Sans, what did you wake me up for?” She asks whilst gazing deeply at your eyes

“tori said they were making coffee, and i uh, need to get up.”

“Why don’t you stay here with me though? You’re so warm and _comfortable,_ I couldn’t give you up, comedian.” _why is it NOW the time that they start flirting_

“u-uh.” You cough “fine, i’ll stay with you a little bit longer.” _you have a serious problem of not saying no_

“Good.” Her hands tighten and untighten on your bones “Do you wanna know what I was dreaming about?” _hell yeah_

“sure, why not.” Chara flashes you a smile

“You.” The words take a second to click, when they do, you become a blushing mess

“g-geez kid, ease up on the flirting, k?” Chara’s eyes narrow slightly, she’s taking in all of your features

“Nope, I love seeing you like this. Completely under my _mercy._ ” She gets up from you and places one of her legs on either side of your body, pinning your arms with her legs, effectively being, uh, _on top of you_

She better not try to do anything, you think. Why is she even trying to do anything seductive? You aren’t anywhere close to looking nice, your personality is too laid-back and apathetic that they shouldn’t even consider you in any way _attractive._ What suddenly caused this change in perspective, or maybe they’re finally acting upon their feelings? Guess I’ll find out.

“How far do you think I can take this, comedian?” She lifts your shirt up a little bit, exposing a few ribs “Because I can take this _pretty damn far._ ”

Your magic is still depleted, your physical strength is barely anything, there is no way you can force her off of you. If you tried to call for Tori, she wouldn’t have been any help as she also has no magic right now. As she said, you’re “completely under her mercy,” so I guess I just have to roll with it. She places her arm underneath your shirt, caressing your ribs, which are highly sensitive. It’s hard to breathe, it feels good, but it feels wrong coming from Chara.

“fuck... chara… stop.” You say breathlessly, all Chara can spare is a lustful grin

“I’m not done yet, I want to see you _beg._ ” she presses down harder

Stars burst in your vision, Chara is relentless with this, wanting to see your every movement.

“Mmmhm, I know what will work.” She pulls the remainder of your shirt up, your soul beating vigorously

She leans down and suckles on one of your ribs, stars bursting your vision once more. Your body leans into the touch involuntary, causing Chara to go harder.

“b-bud... ser-seriously. stop doing t-this...” Your mind goes numb, it’s hard to form coherent words anymore

Chara stops and backs away for a second, lust shown throughout her face.

“I said BEG, comedian. Do I have to repeat myself?”

“if you think i’m gonna beg, then you’re going to be real disappointed.” You say exasperated

“Mmm” She leans down and licks a rib, causing shivers to go down your spine “I could NEVER be disappointed with you, Sans.”

“buddy, this is a bad idea and you know it.”

“Call this… repaying for my past. I know you wanna continue, _and I do too._ ” She inches near your face

“you heard me, i said **no** ”

Chara cups a hand around your mouth and continues her onslaught on your ribs. It’s hard to keep still, every inch of your body seems to be in bliss, but at the same time you don’t want any of it. Just as you feel like you’re about to reach your peak, Chara pulls away from your ribs. In a way, you’re kinda disappointed that you got left on a cliffhanger.

“You love this, don’t you?” Her hand is still cupped around your mouth, you can’t speak “I know you want something more… substantial.” One soft hand grazing the border of your shorts

“Y’know, I learned a whole lot about how monsters work just so I could have the hope of doing this with you.” _that is fuckin weird_ “And I think I’m ready.” _wait, the fuck?_

Her fingers travel into the band of your shorts, Chara looks at you with a face filled with pure lust. She takes the hand from your mouth and suspects you to say something, but you’re speechless, words couldn’t explain how you were feeling at this point. Or they could, you feel used, weak, helpless, forced, and… excited. You hate yourself for getting giddy over the fact that someone you don’t particularly _like_ is forcing you to do an intimate act with them. Chara notices your silence and puts her hand back on, gentler than before.

She pushes her hand into your pelvis, rubbing the innards of the bone there. Your moan is stifled by Chara’s hand, her grin becomes even wider than before. The hand from your mouth is removed and placed at your pelvis alongside the other one.

“Watching you like this makes me so _turned on_.” She says while rubbing with both hands

“b-buddy, p-p-pal, chum. plea-” You’re cut off by a jolt of pleasure “please, just stop.”

“Say it, Sans.” _she is really going for it_

“please... just… stop.” You’re panting, a couple beads of sweat have formed at your forehead

“Mmmm.” She hums, Chara seems satisfied “I’ll stop for now, but you WILL continue with me later though.” She brings your ear to her mouth “And maybe next time I won’t be convinced as easily, comedian.” You stare at her in half-shock as she climbs off of you, she’s still grinning

“I’ll be down with you and the goat for some coffee in a minute. If you mention this to Toriel…” Her face contorts into something more menacing “I’ll give you hell, understand?” _you understand alright_

“oh boy do i understand.”

“You better. No other soul can hear about this.”

“yep”

“Good, now get going.” She pulls you off of the mattress and onto the floor

You struggle to your feet, you’re shaking at the thought of what just happened. You put on your slippers and walk towards the door. Chara shouldn’t have even tried that, it was horrible! They literally used you like you were some toy, you were useless to them, maybe you always have been. You should give them a few harsh words before you leave, if they wanna be a dick, you’ll fight back.

“fuck you.” _simple enough_

“I would like that.” Chara grins smugly

“do you enjoy toying with people? because bud, i seriously thought you changed.” Anger flashes through your features

“all it would take is one hit, one hit for me to die. but you never tried to hurt me ever since we arrived in this universe.” You think your next words carefully

“so i’m confused, are you _trying_ to make me hate you, or are you just really bad at being a good person.” You swear you could hear Chara’s teeth grinding

“i’m trying, bud. i’m trying as hard as i can to not be rude to you, to not make any actions i may regret. but it’s time for you to _change_ and that time is _now._ ” _Chara doesn’t seem ready to act on your insults_

“but this? this is too far, even for you, and you know _far._ get a goddamn _grip_ before I make you get one.” Your barely filtered fury seeps out of you

“Fuck off.” She takes a step forward “You don’t know me! I… I…” She finds the floor very interesting at this point, defeat written on her face “Why am I such a screwup?”

“probably because you act whenever you get an impulse to do something.” _that’s a good reason_

“You said that you don’t hate me, but you say a lot of things that you don’t mean. Is my only purpose to be a nuisance to everyone? Why do you care about me, all i’ve ever done is hurt you, does someone like me **really** deserve mercy?”

You think long and hard about this, does the person who labels themselves as a “demon” deserve mercy? They know how much of a bad person they are, that proves to me something, by knowing what your problems are, she could fix them. But that doesn’t make them a good person. This scene that just happened, it showed a lot to me that I didn’t already know, Chara’s vulnerability, her need for validation, and uh, _controlling_ behavior. Maybe they just kept all of their emotions in there until it was too much for them to bear. Something else comes to mind, did somebody else influence them to be this way, your first assumption would be Frisk, they’re always on-hand and known to be influential. It would make sense that Frisk would be the culprit of Chara’s newfound behavior, (or newfound for you at least) there is no way that Chara could switch personalities so quick. Maybe this scene was Chara getting tired of being someone she is not, so she acted how she wanted to act. They’re just a person with a load of problems and they don’t know how to cope with it, what they did is irrelevant if they know it’s bad, that doesn’t make them a bad person.

You finally decide on what to do, you’ve been quiet for a good chunk of time. Wordlessly, you walk briskly towards Chara and wrap your arms around their body.

“Huh?! What?” _they sound surprised_

“shut it. i care about you, kiddo, more than you probably think.” _Chara seems speechless, this is something they didn’t expect_

“just... hold on, alright? somebody really cares about you.” Chara’s face shows a spark of remembrance, the familiar words seemed to comfort them

“Thank you. I-I really didn’t think you even thought about giving me a chance.” She pulls you in closer

The both of you sit in silence, basking in the comfort of each other's arms, neither of you dares to pull back. You’re glad that maybe, just maybe, Chara can try to be a better person than they were before. Maybe this could help you with your own problems, you have loads of problems you have to deal with. A couple of minutes have passed, you pull away so you can get into the kitchen and not worry Tori. Chara looks a little sad that you had to cut it short, but flashes you a wide smile.

“How about we get that coffee, huh? I’m still kinda tired.” You nod your head and guide her out of the room

 

****************

 

You take a sip of the coffee, it isn’t too bitter, it’s pretty good. Calm, that’s one way to describe the atmosphere. Chara left to take a shower after practically chugging the coffee, they probably just had to do some stuff in the bathroom and didn’t wanna ask. Tori is idly flipping through the Undernet, there are no reports on humans coming through, so that’s a relief. Ever since you came down from the room, Tori has been looking at you as if you did something wrong, she finally musters up the courage to ask you.

“Okay, enough beating around the bush, what did you and the human do in the bedroom” _yep, the ever tricky question_

“uhhh” _great start_ “well this is going to be hard to explain.”

“let’s just say that my magic was suppressed from the hangover and the kid did…” You trail off, _didn’t you tell Chara that you weren’t going to tell Tori? Fuck that._

“she pinned me, and did… some things to me. it was fuckin weird. then i got all pissed at them.”

“What do you mean by ‘some things,’ I need to know.” _fuck_

You begin blushing “as a skeleton, one thing that you can do uh, _sexually,_ involves the parts of the skeleton i cover. they fuckin started touching me there.”

“O-oh.” Tori’s cheeks are dusted pink

“yeah.” You look away

“Do you trust them to not do anything… bad to anyone else in this house?” _chara’s only really into you, so i assume no_

“most likely not, i think they just wanna do it to me because it’s fun to them.” _now that just sounds weird_

“A-are you okay? Did they hurt you? Their body will be _torched_ if they did.” Toriel bares her teeth

“i’m s’ok, they made sure not to hurt me. but uh, don’t tell the kid that i told you this, or they _will_ hurt me.”

“I’ll try my best not to.” The two of you sit in an uncomfortable silence for a minute

“Has this happened before?”

“this is a recent thing, honestly i didn’t think they even thought i was anywhere close to being attractive.” _that’s true_

“Do you like them? Y’know, like-like them? Would you date them if they asked you out?” _what kind of question is that? of course not! It’s pretty hard to be attracted to someone if they are in so many bad memories_

“fucking **no,** tori. there is no way in hell can i see them as dateable, not after what they have done to me.”

You take another sip of the coffee, was Chara trying to hookup with you, or did they just wanna see you be hopeless? Knowing them, they probably went for the latter, they always were the happiest when you were at your most hopeless. Judging by their expression in the room, there was the chance that they did what they did because they wanted to, it seems a little bit more than just messing with me. She was gentle with you, besides, uh, the pinning and gagging, were they afraid that you would die if she messed up? Chara has never really cared about your wellbeing until maybe 10 resets ago, I’m still stuck over the fact that they changed personalities so quick, what do they even see in me? You take a large gulp of coffee, some of it dribbling down your skull, Tori looks with concern painted on her face.

“Are you _sure,_ you’re okay?”

You slam your mug against the table, coffee spilling out of it “i’m not okay.” You hadn’t meant for that to slip out, but you roll with it anyway

“why the fuck does this have to be so confusing! this whole situation makes no sense! what the hell did i ever do to deserve this?”

“Sans, you have to-” You cut her off

“i have to what? i go through at least a year’s worth of resets, finally form some sort of relationship with the kid, and then i get nearly fuckin _raped_.” You stand up from your chair

“all i wait for is the chance that something will happen, but **nothing ever does, does it?** isn’t it sad when your only hope is what _might_ happen and not what _will_ happen? i wake up every day knowing that i’m going to die, whether that be literally or in my head.”

“you know how i feel?” You wait for a response, but you get none  “terrible, every second of my pitiful life is agony. I hate having to play therapist with everyone when i’m the one who needs help.” You cool down, letting out your emotions is something hard for you

“do i even matter to anyone?” You sit back onto the chair and press your head against the wood of the table

Tori seems to go through pain due to seeing you like this. Even so, she doesn’t bother to speak up, we sit in silence until the bathroom door unlocks and Chara comes out looking happier than ever. At least someone is having a good time, your emotions are in shambles at the moment. Chara walks down the stairs and looks at you, her happy expression quickly fades, she walks to the tables and stares at you directly at you. Tori is trying her best to not be pissed at Chara, you can easily tell that her face has an unfathomable amount of rage contained in it, why does she even care about this situation that doesn’t involve her?

“What happened?” Chara asks you sternly

It’s hilarious, it’s so goddamn hilarious, how could they not notice the problems that **they** caused. You laugh, so hard that your ribcage starts to hurt, but you continue to laugh even harder. It’s just so funny how they act so **oblivious** to everything that they do, if they think that they can just pretend to care, then man are they wrong. Your roaring laughter echoes off of the walls, Chara and Tori look disturbed at your behavior, but you don’t care, this is the **best goddamn joke you’ve ever heard**. Tears stream down your face, the joke you were just laughing at isn’t so funny anymore, you realise that you’re crying now.

You shove your face into your arms, _oh god I look so pathetic in front of them._ All you want is just some alone time, but at the same time, you want to be around others, why the fuck do emotions have to be so confusing?

“Hey… hey. What’s wrong?” _of course it’s fucking chara_

“fuck off.” Your eyelights have disappeared

“I won’t. What. Is. Wrong.” She demands an answer, _like she demands everything_

“you know what’s wrong, i’m fuckin tired of being used.”

“Sans, you aren’t being used, you know that.” She rubs your back, _stay away from me, anomaly_

“sure, sure, you can say that to yourself. want some more lies?” Chara looks guilty

“do you know how this feels, bud? that literally anything i do doesn’t change shit, i’m just another toy for you.” Tears are still flowing out of your eye sockets

“You _aren’t._ ” _shut the fuck up_

“then **act** like i’m not one! you say you’re going to do something but you never do it!” Her hand comes off of your back

“I am trying! The best I can do!” Chara looks a little irritated

“your best must be absolute _dog shit_ because you are doing one fuckin horrible job at it.”

“At least I try! All you ever do is sulk around and do nothing about your problems!” _how dare you._

“this ain’t about me! this is about how much of a dickhead you are, and trust me, you’re pretty far up there, like the stick up your ass.”

Chara lets out a sigh and rubs the bridge of her nose, “Just… Sans, even if what I’m doing isn’t the best, I’m still trying, okay? Keep that in mind.” _i really need to calm down, i might’ve taken it too far_

“i will, but maybe you should think about doing more than the bare minimum?”

“ _I’ll try my best_.”

It’s hard to catch your breath, it’s not like you to outburst like that, but tension is high between you and Chara. It’s pretty blatant that Chara is willing to change just for you, and that is something hard for you to comprehend. Maybe it’s me that has to change? I’ve created this whole scene right now over nothing, that’s gotta show for something against me, right? The room is still while the two of you try to relax after what just unfolded. Tori seems to be confused, but also happy in a way, she has pretty much no idea what our relationship is like, but she’s still glad that it might improve to be something good for us both.

“sorry for outbursting like that.” _you’re actually sorry_

“Same, shouldn't have done that.” _she seems genuine, i’ll trust it for now_

Chara’s stomach grumbles, from what you have learned from human books, they’re hungry.

“guess we should make something to eat, huh?” _i’m hungry too_

“Let’s.” _okay then._

You’re still wary of Chara, it’s always best to have your guard up even if you feel safe. Even with this in mind, you don’t think anything bad will happen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For Chara's POV on the 'scene' at the beginning, go here https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392350


	5. Murky Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> oof just why would i give a summary when you could just read the text.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HHHHHHMMMMMMMM INTERESTING...

Breakfast is ready, you’re starving, or uh, figuratively. Eggs and bacon is a good combo, it soothes your soul, replenishing your depleted energy. You down the rest of your coffee quickly, you’re going to need as much energy as you can get if you’re going to be doing sciency stuff today. Gotta prepare for that migrain.

You get up from your chair at the table and walk to the kitchen, turning on the water to wash your mug and plate. You grab a pen and paper, you’ll need it later. After that, you return to the living room, getting cozy on the couch, you decide that it would be best if you were to find out the best course of action for getting back home. Would thinking of theories be a good idea? Or do we work with what we know so far, which is practically nothing. Out of all Universe’s why did you end up in this one? Perhaps you can confront Tori about what happened on the day of your arrival.

What exactly do you even do when it comes to sciency stuff if you have nothing to go off on except a rushed theory?

“hey kiddo.” Chara’s head perks up at your voice “regarding the science that we’re doing later, what the hell do we even research if we got nothin’?”

“I was just thinking the  _exact_  same thing.”

“oh, cool. whadda we do then?”

“Test theories, fuck shit up, get money.” Chara replies

“cool, cool.” You shift your body towards Tori “ay yo tori, i gots a few questions for you to answer.”

She squirms “What kind of questions?”

“like uh, what happened before you found us in the snow.”

“Yeah, I’ll be glad to answer those.” She gets up from her chair and walks towards you on the couch

She sits herself right next you, her back pressed flush against the back of the couch. A tall can of whipped cream is gripped within her paws, she proceeds to take a small taste.

“Ask away, Sans.”  _okay then_

“what time was it when you found us?”

“About 11, we sat there for more than an hour just waiting for you to wake up.” You write that down on your paper

“huh, okay,” You try your best to remember the time before you fell into that black void “we got transported round’... 9.” _That seems right, you remember checking your phone for a second after you got woken up by papyrus_

“so what were you doing at 9AM?”

“Uhh… going to Grillby’s.” _didn’t she say that she doesn’t go there much anymore? something probably happened_

“okay, okay, now hear me out, according to my theory, we got here  _because_ of a shortcut and a reset, right?” Tori nods her head “so what if you did a shortcut at the same time as me, causing it to overshoot its destination?”

“maybe we could test that, if your magic is stronger than mine, your shortcut might take priority over mine.”

“But that doesn’t explain how you even got pulled here…”

“didn’t the kid mention something about saves…?” You say your thoughts out loud

Chara has your full attention “What about the saves?”

“whadda they do?”

“Using my determination, it saves a point in time so I can return to it later, easy.” She says as if it’s the most basic knowledge in the world, you scratch the information down

“guess that might help me out…” An idea pops into your mind “what would happen if the ‘save’ got corrupted? or even just move to a place it shouldn’t be?”

“That’s gotta be impossible, the only thing that could be interfering with my magic was the shortcut, which is just teleporting.”

“yeah, but a shortcut takes you through the  _void,_ the goddamn  _void_.”  _did they reset in the void?_ “if you did a reset in the void, where would you go?’

“Back to the start, duh.”

“the void is literally out of space and time, it exists and doesn’t at the same time. if you reset you probably would’ve went nowhere, or just thrown randomly around until some place sticked.” You recall the mind-numbing pain you felt, that is something you don’t ever want to experience again

“Are you saying that you just got tossed around the timelines until someone did a shortcut?” Tori asks you for confirmation

“pretty much.”

“That still doesn’t explain why the shortcut didn’t just bring you where you needed to go.” Tori inquires

That’s a good question, why didn’t it? Does a large amount of determination override the effects of a shortcut? That might make sense, guess i’ll throw that onto the table as a suggestion.

“what if active determination stop the effects of a shortcut from working? so we just got caught in the void halfway through?”

“Actually… yeah, that makes sense.” Tori looks thoughtful

You write down all of your ideas as precisely as you can, Tori is staring at you, not the writing, but  _you_.

To summarize how you got here, (just a theory, okay?) you did a shortcut, but quite literally a few milliseconds later, Chara did a reset. Since you were in the void, Chara had no ‘save’ to go to, so it did nothing, but the huge amount of active determination intercepted the rest of the shortcut. The result was you guys being stuck in the void, floating the the dark abyss. Tori did her own shortcut, which  _somehow_ brought you here into her dimension. The rest of the story sounds okay, but you have nothing really supporting the ending bit, it makes no sense that a simple shortcut made by Tori could’ve brought you here. Perhaps it has something to do with your souls? You both act pretty similar, do the same things and react the same way, it wouldn’t be too far-fetched to think that.

“hey tori, mind if i see ya soul?” Her face flushes

“Y-yeah, i can show you…” She pulls it out, you can easily identify that the main trait is Bravery

You pull yours out, Tori’s eyes widen and she sputters in surprise, souls not only used for battling, but for uh, _sexual purposes._

“nothing intimate, i promise, tori.” She realizes the weight of your words and calms down a bit

The main trait of your soul is Justice, which makes sense, as you’re always trying to show judgement for the people who deserve it. Bravery and Patience are two traits that fit the best with Justice, so maybe your theory about the souls is correct? After further inspection of Tori’s soul, you notice a speck determination in the mix, guess that’s something you both have. You move your soul over right beside Tori’s, comparing how they look. Tori is obviously sweating and blushing even harder, she doesn’t break her gaze away from the two souls.

Weirdly, your soul and Tori’s look nearly identical, save for the main trait. The swirls and patterns shown on yours are also evident on the other one. Interesting. They seem to be moving towards each other like magnets, but really slowly. So you keep pushing them away, but it becomes too much of hassle so you move your soul back into your body. After writing down some notes, you move to guide Tori’s soul back, but as you do that, you’re fingers brush the surface of her soul slowly, causing her to jolt up in surprise. Her eyes flick between you and the floating soul, an indecipherable expression on her face.

“s-sorry tori, seriously did NOT mean to do that. you alright?” You say while moving the soul back safely, a little hasily

“I’m alright, i’m alright, okay?” She says quickly “It didn’t hurt, it just felt…” Her entire face went scarlet, you’re pretty sure you understand the implications

You sigh, “well, i guess comparing our souls might’ve proven somethin’”

“Like what?” Tori asks out of breath

“our souls are nearly identical, down to the goddamn magic patterns. the only difference that i could spot was the main trait, but even so, they’re still compatible.” You tell Tori

“How is that even important?”

“because it could show how i got here, if our souls have some sort of unknown bond…” Chara looks irritated “then it could be possible that when you shortcutted, it was calling out for my soul in a way.”

She nods “That’s... agreeable. Just how do you go back? There’s no way you can reverse the effects if that’s true.”

“that’s why… we should test out another shortcut-reset.” Tori looks like you said the stupidest thing of all time

“Why?! You’ll just get thrown around timelines until one sticks!”

“we don’t even know if the theory is true! we gotta test it before we make assumptions!”

She sighs, “If you guys actually  _do_ that, make sure I’m there.” Tori says sternly

“why?”

“Because wherever you go, I want to help! I’m just going to be miserable in my own timeline anyway.” _if tori wants to come, she can, but we don’t even know what is going to happen anyways_

“when me and the kid test that theory, i’ll be sure to get you, ok?”

“Yeah…” Her gaze floats to the TV “Let’s save all of this science and theories and stuff for later, let’s see what’s on TV.”

She hops off from the couch and turns on the TV  _manually, like a dingus._  There is literally a remote right next to you, you could’ve just turned it on like that. You flip through the channels, the best thing on is a Mettaton News Channel, so you settle on that. Chara joins the two on you on the couch, seating herself to your left, Tori is on the right. The words ‘BREAKING NEWS’ flash over the bottom the screen, Chara looks surprised. You turn the volume up so you can hear the TV better.

“-so has King Sans arrived back at his kingdom? Has he not abandoned us?” _what? is this universe’s sans the king?_

The camera pans over to a decently tall skeleton (compared to you) wearing a crown on top of his head. He’s wearing one of those robes that Tori weared back at your universe, there seems to be a hoodie underneath it. His body is slouch down, hands are in his pockets, a nervous expression is on his face.

“heya, sans here. i literally just found out there was no king so… i came back.”

“Did you meet the human who killed your brother, your majesty?”

“yeah, apparently i did, they seemed pretty chill, at least they were then. they wanted to leave, so i fought them but gave up, then they left and shiz.” Tori seems to be a little angry when she hears him describe the human as chill

“So, Sans, you were spotted at Grillby’s in Snowdin yesterday, any reason why you went there?”

King Sans’ face looks confused “i uh, didn’t go to grillby’s yesterday, i only left my place today.”

“What?! These pictures were presented to us yesterday, before you showed up! How is it possible that you didn’t go!” Mettaton inquires

King Sans reviews the pictures, he looks even more confused than last time “how the fuck? this guy looks exactly like me, that makes no  **sans**.”

“Indeed! Who is this mystery skeleton, and why do they look so much like our King? Are they a doppelganger who wants to overthrow the crown? Is our own King lying to us? Found out next time we broadcast, but before that, a word from our sponsors…” Tori turns off the TV

You take a deep breath “welp, we’re  **boned**.”

“Did you guys seriously go to Grillby’s yesterday?” Chara asks, you nod back

“Do we confess or something? Doing that would involve bringing up the human…” Tori thinks out loud

“Hey! I got a name, ya dingus! It’s Chara!” Tori tenses up and mumbles something under her breath

“i’m saying this right now, we gotta tell this to the king.” The other two look at you weirdly

“it makes sense! if we got protection from the king, we won’t have anything to worry about.”

“As much as I hate it, that’s probably the best idea.” Chara reluctantly agrees

“...Yeah” Toriel states

“guess we gotta go then.” You stand up from the couch “like right now.”

“Why now? We got all of time we need to wait.” Chara says

“yeah, and?” no reply “if our experiments somehow throw us into another universe, we wouldn’t want the king to worry, would we? If a monster dies, the whole world practically knows, monsters don’t just randomly disappear, y’know.”

“it’s best to just get it out of the way before something happens.”

“Then let’s go then, we gotta take some showers and change our clothes first.” Tori says

“k.”

So, Tori hops into the shower while you and Chara chill out on the couch, Asgore gets back from his morningly puzzle check-ups. You explain to him how the experiments that you will do might effect his sister, he says that it is worth the risk if it can help us. He promises to not worry if Tori is gone for a while, which is good. He leaves to go to his room, to do whatever he does in there, leaving you and Chara to your thoughts.

“Hey, Sans…” You look in Chara’s direction “Sorry about earlier, a lot of things came over me and I didn’t know how to react.”

“it’s okay chara, i already said i forgive you, didn’t i?”

“I feel like I don’t deserve it though, it doesn’t make sense for me to hurt you and for you to be okay with that.”

“i’m  **not**  okay with that,” Chara shivers “but it doesn’t mean i don’t forgive you.”

“Why do you even care about me? I’ve never done anything for you.”

“it doesn’t matter to me if you do nothing for me, i still like ya, and there’s no changing that.”

“But… but, uh…” She can’t think of a retort “I’ll accept your forgiveness then”  _great_

“cool, i didn’t want ya to think i hated you forever.”

You both sit there in silence until Tori walks out of the bathroom, where you start to take your shower afterwards.

 

\-----------------

 

The shower was refreshing, warm water always feels great on your bones. You step out of the bathroom wearing new clothes and feeling pretty damn clean. You check your hoodie for any missing things, and you come across a chocolate bar, you don’t remember putting that in there. On the back it says  _‘from chara n frisk,’_   **sweet** , guess they decided to give me something nice, I know how much Chara loves their chocolate, so this was probably hard for her. Wait, did they sneak into the bathroom  _just_ to give you this? That means… ooh scandalous.

The rest of the crew seems ready to go, Tori gestures for you to come outside. As you walk into the brisk morning snow, Chara follows you two outside wearing their normal attire, it looks slightly cleaner.

“ay chara, thanks for the chocolate.” Chara mutters something that sounds like ‘no problem’

“Are we taking a shortcut?” Tori asks

“didya really think that we were going to walk?” You grab Chara’s wrist

“Hey! Not so hard!” Chara cries

“i seriously thought you were going to say something like ‘quit grappin’ my hand you creepy skeleton’”

Chara moves closer to your body “I don’t mind if you touch me, Sans~” You can feel your face flush

“o-ok, cut it out kiddo, this is a flirting-free zone.” You push her back

“Shut it you two!” Both of you look at Tori, she looks irritated “We gotta king we have to talk to, shortcut to the Judgment Hall?”

“yeah.” You state

You perform a shortcut as normal, you can feel the world disappearing underneath you. For a split second you can feel everything stop existing, but it is all pulled back the next. You blink a little bit, adjusting to the light of the hall, you notice Tori standing a little closer than before.

“k, looks like we’re here.”

“I hate this place…” Tori mumbles, you agree

The group begins walking towards the Throne room, you’re surprised that no one else is here, with the news of the King being back and all. As you arrive in the room, you notice a figure taking a nap on the throne.

“Oh my god…” Tori snickers

“i’m totally taking a picture.” You snap a pic with your phone

“So who’s gonna wake the idiot up?” Chara asks us

“wouldn’t it make sense if tori woke him up? they kinda know each other.”

King Sans stretches out on his throne, his eyelights falling into place.

“or heh, y’know, i could’ve just heard you guys talking and didn’t care enough to move.” He says tiredly

“oh cool, less trouble for us.” King Sans looks at you, a look of confusion on his face

“oh hey, you’re that guy that was mistaken for me on the news, sup.” He waves his hand lazily

“that’s cuz i AM you, ya  **numskull.** ” You say

“huh?”

“are ya familiar with the multiverse theory?” He nods “yeah, that, except i somehow got put into another universe.”

“wait wait wait, you’re from another universe?” His eyes fall on Chara “that explains the human then.” He studies Chara more closely “you look like… my daughter, chara, just older.”

“Holy shit…” Chara snickers “I’m this bozo’s daughter, oh my god.” Tori’s smile wavers

“alternate realities chara, alternate realities. they could be literally anything, ok? there’s probably one where you’re having sexy times with me, and that…” You recall what happened earlier “fuck.”

“Oh my god.” Chara says between laughing

“Hey! We’re _trying_  to explain our situation to the King!” Tori says strictly

“yeah, yeah, where was i at?” You think a little bit “oh yeah, i’m basically you, but from another universe. we came here so you can grant our human protection from monsters and shiz like that.” King Sans is thinking

“sounds cool. we got no real reason to even kill humans if we have no souls anymore, so…” He shrugs “guess i should write up an announcement or somethin’?”

“Yeah, cool and all, but we got some other things on our mind too.” Chara nudges you to speak

“oh yeah, we’re going to be testing out some theories, so  **if**  this little goat mysteriously disappears, that’s why.” You put a large emphasis on the ‘if’

“what kind of ‘theories’?”

“y’know, the usual, bending time and space, going across the multiverse, manipulating the fabric of the universe, no biggie.”

“oh.”

“yeah.”

“Wait a second! We need to give you a nickname!” Chara points at King Sans

“huh?”

“Yeah! A nickname! How the hell else are we gonna tell you apart from my greasy-ass Sans?” King Sans flinches at hearing someone who resembles their kid swear

“How about... “ Chara rubs her chin thoughtfully whilst studying the king “Crown?”

“chara, that was fuckin horrible.” You tell her, she shoots you a glare

“Can  _you_  come up with something better?”

“i was thinking somethin’ like ‘chuckles’ or ‘royal,’ they’re basic and actually make sense.”

“Mine makes sense!”

“but it sucks.”

“No it doesn’t!”

“yeah it does.”

“No. It. Doesn’t.”

“did i stutter?”

“Fuck you.”

“Guess I’m the one deciding this then…” Tori sighs “I think Royal sounds nice, it seems like it would suit you.” Chara glares at Tori, your smile grows wider

“nice. sorry if i’m wrong bout this, but do i know you?” His hand points in Tori’s direction

“Y-yeah, you sound familiar too… are you that skeleton behind that huge door?” You swear you could see Royal’s eyelights grow brighter

“i am. hey, what’s the best thing to take pictures with in snowdin?”

“What?” Tori’s smile grows

“ **polar** -oids.” Tori lets out laugh, Royal laughs with her too

“Wait, wait, I got one.” She gathers her composure “How you ever tried to eat a clock?”

“nah, i haven’t.”

“It’s really,  **time consuming**.”

The whole room bursts into laughter, Royal slips off of his throne and falls onto the floor, that makes the rest of you laugh even harder. Even Chara is laughing, that is a miracle in itself, they basically never do that. After a minute or so of spontaneous giggling, everyone has calmed down to the point of actually being able to speak without laughing.

“guess we should get going…” You say

“yeah, i got a load of king stuff i gotta do, so i’m going to be off. cya guys sometime later.” He gets up from the floor and walks towards his house

“Shortcut?” Tori asks

“shortcut.” You grab Chara’s wrist once again, they don’t protest this time

 

\--------------

 

The shortcut lands straight into the living room, Asgore is jumps practically 3 feet in the air from shock. After he sees that it is just us, he calms down.

“Tori! Don’t scare me like that!” Asgore scolds Tori

“Sorry Az, thought you were still in your room or something.” Tori replies

“Mmmhmm…” He grumbles as he settles himself back into couch

“so what do we do now? practice those theories?” You ask everyone

“Probably, don’t wanna delay it if it turns out bad.” Chara answers

“I can agree with that… lemme just do something first.” Tori runs to Asgore and hugs him tightly, much to his surprise

“I promise I’ll be back here, even if something bad happens! Okay?”

“Yeah, I get it, just ease up on the grip…” Tori lets go “I’ll miss you if you leave somehow, okay? Try to be back fast.”

“I’ll try my best, Az.” Tori smiles warmly “Don’t get into any trouble.”

“I won’t.”

After the two siblings have a silent-sibling-moment, Tori finally prys themselves away from her brother.

“I’m ready.” Tori says, determination in her voice

“you say that as if ya gonna die or something.”

“I might. Best to make it seem serious even if it isn’t all that important.”

“my universe is important, geez, it’s not the  **time**  to be saying that, tori.” She snickers

“Let’s just test this theory out, and then get out as fast possible, okay?” Tori seems nervous

“where do we even do it? the hidden lab?”

“Not a good idea.” Chara speaks up “If we  _do_  go into another universe, it’s best not to invade someone’s home when we get transported.”

“so would the place we arrived in last time be the best place?”

“I got no idea where we landed last time.” _oh yeah, she wasn’t awake yet_  “But I’m assuming it’s a good spot, so yeah, pretty much.” Chara says

“ya know what time it is?”

Tori answers “1PM, why?” You produce a piece of paper from your pocket and hastily write down the time “Ooh, smart.”

“it’s also shortcutting time, but that’s kinda irrelevant.” You very quickly grab Chara’s wrist again

“Oh my god! Stop doing that!”

“nah.”

“Do you have a hand fetish or something?”

“hush ya mouth before i give ya the finger.” Chara blushes “the OTHER finger ya horny ass human.”

“...”

“i gotta  **hand**  it to you, you somehow turn everything into a sex joke, it’s a **palm** ing.”

“...Let’s just go, alright?” Chara says quietly

“you remember where ya found me tori?” She nods “yeah, just go there.”

The familiar shifting of the world emcompasses your body and drops you off at your landing location. Memories of your arrival in this universe flood your head.

For some reason, an indescribable feeling flows through your soul and body, it you feels like you’re prepared for anything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- Toriel is still pretty mad at Chara for being a near-literal dickweed
> 
> \- I wish Asgore had more time in the story, but idc
> 
> \- Royal is pretty much Sans but likes messing with people more, and also is more caring for what people are thinking
> 
> \- For some reason this took me forever to write
> 
> \- Next chapter is gonna be lit /b/ois
> 
> \- 99.99% chance there is gonna be a new Au, so if that ain't really your jazz, then idc.


	6. A couple of familiar faces

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> what's the point of a summary if you see it before what you're going to read?
> 
> underswap.
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> also i hoped for this to be longer, but it isn't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Toriel's POV on this chapter can be found here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392350/chapters/38536757

For some reason, an indescribable feeling flows through your soul and body, it feels like you’re prepared for anything.

It quickly becomes overpowering, it takes so much of your strength just to be able to stand straight. Abruptly, the feeling vanishes, it feels like it was never there in the first place. For some reason, you feel like something within you has changed, but you can’t place where exactly that place is.

“Hey, Sans, you alright?” Tori looks at you, worried

“yeah, i’m fine, let’s get this over with.” You look away, she doesn’t push it

The group stands in a circle, Tori looks really nervous.

“can you do a reset, chara?”

“WAIT A SECOND!” She realizes something “What the hell was the point of talking to Royal and saying goodbye to Asgore if they’re just going to forget?”

Your mind draws a blank “oh yeah, forgot about that

Tori chuckles “How could we?”

“Oh my god… we’re so stupid!” Chara groans

“If we end up redoing this, let’s just go back to Royal and redo the chat we had, it was fun.” Tori says

You shrug “hey, let’s just do this, alright?”

The group forms a circle another time, we’re going to finally test out that theory. Your eyes lock with Chara’s, her expression bursts with determination.

“should we do this on a count? like we start from 10 and go down?”

“Yeah. I’ll lead it.” Chara volunteers

 

“10…”

“9…”

“8…”

“7…”

“6…”

“5…”

“4…”

“3…”

“2…”

“1…"

“NOW!”

 

~

 

~~~

 

~~~~~

 

~~~~~~~

 

~~~~~~~~~

 

~~~~~~~

 

~~~~~

 

~~~

 

~

 

The world becomes pitch black, you don’t even have the time to respond.

The world shifts around you, but also doesn’t at the same time, it feels like you’re still in the same spot. As you peer into the darkness, you can see lines of light branching off like spiderwebs. They somehow seem to glisten, what could these lines be? Suddenly, you feel sick, _really_ sick, your breathing becomes shallower, you wish you could crumple on the floor, but there is no floor. Then comes the pain, the searing, bone bending pain. It feels like someone filled each of your bones with molten lava, tears are prickling at the edge of your eye sockets.

At this point, you thought you would pass out, or even die, but it all marches on. The darkness around you shifts and morphs into… something. It’s not even a shape, hell, it probably doesn’t even exist, it’s hard to tell through the pain. A huge stream of blinding light fills your eye sockets, you try to scream but you can’t move, now that you think of it, nothing in your body is movable, you’re forced to endure the light. Your senses are multiplied by the millions, or is that just how it normally is? You’re thrown out of the Void at an alarming speed and smash into the snow with an amazing force. So much of your body is in pain that you honestly wouldn’t mind being dusted just to relieve yourself.

Wait, snow? The coolness of Snowdin air hits your bones. You gather enough energy to lift your head up to survey the location, it looks exactly same, if not slightly different. A few feet to the left of you, you can see Tori knocked out near the base of a tree, a very long skidmark showing her path. As you look round more, you can see that there is no sign of Chara. Maybe that is to be expected? It happened last time, they’re probably just somewhere around here, but you cannot help but be worried.

After **chilling** (heh) in the snow for a few minutes, you finally gather the strength to get onto your legs, right as you do, you feel the sudden urge to vomit. So you do, you hurl the contents of your soul all over the snow, a constant stream of blue vomit flows out of your mouth. You begin coughing uncontrollably afterward and have the need to vomit again, this is seriously hurting your body. Finally, the torture is finished, all you want to do is cry, but you don’t allow yourself that luxury, we have more important things to do. You shakily walk yourself to Tori, staring at all of her features to determine if she’s hurt, which she isn’t.

She shifts a little in her sleep, you grab her shoulders and begin shaking lightly.

“h-hey tori, wake up.” No response, you shake harder

“buddy, wakey wakey.” No response

“ya scaring me, just wake up.” No response

“it’s not this hard to wake up okay?” No response

You decide to give up and just carry her around until you find Chara. She is much heavier than what you anticipated, but you manage, carrying her bridal style in your arms. After surveying the location, you decide that it would be the best idea if you walk towards Snowdin. After just a few seconds of walking, you can hear voices conversing loudly in the distance, they’re muffled, so you got no idea what they’re saying. As you travel further into the snowy land, you begin to make out their words.

“Mweheheh! Human! This puzzle here is designed by my amazing brother! Or uh, where is the puzzle Pappy?” This person’s voice sounds loud and jovial, a little on the childish side

“it’s right there bro.” This person sounds chill and laid-back, his words indicate that they’re probably pretty damn lazy

“That’s a piece of paper! It isn’t a puzzle!” Loud-guy scolds

“it’s definitely a puzzle, i just don’t have the **words** to describe it.” Lazy-boy puns

“I don’t even know what’s on the paper and I already know that’s a pun…” Loud-guy is probably irritated

“Okay, can you guys just kindly _fuck off_ and help me find my friends?” A voice you recognize as Chara’s says, _ooh, that’s the human that guy was talking about_

“hey hey, buddy, calm down on the language.” Lazy-boy says

“I’m sitting here, doing puzzles instead of helping my friends that could be possibly _dead_. Say that back to yourself, Stretchy-bones McGee.” Chara quips

“alright alright, we’ll help, where are they?” You can see the people Chara is talking to from the sidelines, _holy shit they look like you and paps_

The first skeleton you see is a short one who resembles you pretty well. He seems to wear a battle-body type of costume and a blue bandana. Literally, nearly all of his body is covered in blue, even his goddamn eyelights are blue. Now that you think of it, he kinda looks like Paps, just with different colors and looks like you.

The other skeleton is slightly slouched over and wearing a bright orange hoodie. Their face looks pretty close to Paps, he is also pretty much the same height as him. He seems to be smoking a cigarette, you can see a package of them peeking out is hoodie pocket.

“Somewhere behind me, _don’t fucking lay a finger on them, capisce?_ ” _since when was chara so protective?_

You decide that it would be best if you left the trees and just exposed yourself and Tori to these new people so the situation doesn’t get out of hand. But what if these people are dangerous? There is always the chance of that happening, and they could probably whoop your ass if they wanted to, you’re pretty damn vulnerable since you’re feeling pretty weak. Chara’s there though, and you’re **sure** that this is your Chara, not this universe’s Chara. They said that they wanted to help her ‘friends’ which is obviously us. One way or another, you’re going to probably meet these skeletons, so it’s best to just do it right now. You take a few steps out of the trees.

“nah, they won’t, because i already found myself.” Everybody’s heads snap in your direction

“h-holy…” The taller skeleton gapes “...what?”

“what? never seen a cool skeleton before?” You smile smugly

“WOW! I NEVER KNEW I HAD A CLONE!” The smaller skeleton who resembles you leaps up to the front of your body

“About time you arrived Sans!” Chara yells

“WHO? ME?” Chara looks confused

“No, Sans, the guy with the goat in his arms?”

“I DON’T HAVE ANY GOATS IN MY ARMS…” The larger skeleton stares at you in wonder and confusion

“hey ‘stretchy bones mcgee’” You chuckle at the nickname Chara gave “do ya know what the multiverse theory is?”

“huh? oh, yeah i do, lemme guess? you’re from another universe?” Stretchy Bones McGee guesses

“you got some really good guesses, yeah, you’re right.”

“so that’s why this human looked so much different than mine…” Stretchy Bones thinks out loud

“yeah probably.” You shrug

“IS ANYONE GOING TO EXPLAIN WHAT IS GOING ON? WHO IS THIS CLONE OF ME?”

“that skeleton is from another universe bro.”

“WHAT?!” Chara snickers at the hilarity of the situation

“uh, whos the goat your carrying?” Stretchy Bones asks

“technically we haven’t introduced any of our names, so yeah, let’s introduce ourselves before i get into that.”

The shorter skeleton decides to jump right into it “MY NAME IS SANS! THE MAGNIFICENT SANS! ESTEEMED HUMAN HUNTER AND PROTECTOR OF SNOWDIN!” Cheerful-Sans says

“i’m uh, papyrus. i’m a sentry, all i really do is just sit around.” Lazy-Papyrus says

“Hey, hey!” Chara grabs everyone’s attention “My name’s Chara, i’m also a human but that isn’t very important when we get down to it.”

“and my name is sans, but ya can call me whatever.” You say, this universe’s Sans stare you down in wonder

“the goat in my arms is named toriel, but i call them tori.” You tilt your head towards Tori

“LIKE THE QUEEN?”

“yeah kinda, but they aren’t the queen in their universe.” Cheerful-Sans’ eyelights turn into spinning swirls, guess that means he’s confused?

“HOW IS SHE NOT THE QUEEN?”

“different outcomes, anything could’ve happened” You reply

“yeah bro, these are different _universes,_ there is probably one where you become the king bro.” You and Chara both snicker, in Tori’s universe, Sans was technically the king

“what’s so funny?” Stretchy-bones asks with a bone-brow up

“Hehe…” Chara laughs “In Toriel’s universe, Sans is the king, so that was pretty funny.”

“WAIT, I BECOME A KING?!” He turns to his brother “DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS?” Before his brother can respond, he continues talking “ALL I HAVE TO DO IS TRY HARD ENOUGH AND I CAN BECOME THE LEADER OF THE ROYAL GUARD! OR EVEN THE KING! MWEHEHEH!” He strikes a pose

“whatever you want, bro.” Stretchy-Bones says, he eyes your group suspiciously “why are you even here?”

“we wanted to test a theory, but the theory uh, was actually true, so we got transported here.” You explain

“is there any way you can go back?” He glares at Chara

“uh, the transporting is random as far as we know, so, not for now.” You say

Stretchy-Bones pinches the bridge of his nose “i guess you only have one option for now. crash at our house for a little bit.” You swear you heard him mutter something

“Cool. Thanks.” Chara says after looking away from Stretchy-Bone’s gaze

He notices that he’s been acting a little… prickly, so he stops slouching and looks away from Chara. He plucks the cigarette from his teeth and puts it out onto the floor.

“sorry, for glarin’ at ya, kid. the human that usually comes by here looks nearly exactly like you and is a huge dick, so watch out for them.” That piques your interest, is a human actually coming by here?

“PAPPY! LANGUAGE!” That startles you out of your thoughts

“sorry bro.”

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ‘HUMAN THAT USUALLY COMES THROUGH,’ ARE YOU HIDING SOMETHING FROM ME?”

“u-uh…” Stretchy-Bones begins to sweat, you decide it would be easier to help him than just watch

“hey, i’ll explain a load of things if you just take us to ya house, even that thing regarding the human.” This gets Cheerful-Sans’ interest

“I GUESS I’LL MEET YOU THERE… PAPPY, GUIDE THESE GUESTS TO OUR DESTINATION! AND DON’T ANNOY THEM WITH YOUR HORRIBLE PUNS!” He runs off into the distance, leaving the rest of you in the room

Chara is the first to speak “So…. what do we do?”

“you could just crash at our house until you guys get back to your universe or whatever.” Stretchy Bones says

“I know that, but you mentioned a human?” Chara pushes on

Stretchy Bone’s eyelights disappear “yeah.”

“Does it have something to do with the resets?”

“how do you know about those?” Stretchy Bones’ eyelights come back, he looks interested

“Because I got that power too.”

“ **w h a t .** ” Stretchy Bone’s smile looks strained

“Yeah...” Chara looks nervous

“why am i such a mess…” Stretchy Bones mutters to himself “sorry for being a huge dick to you, i just really hate the human i gotta deal with. uh, i don’t _hate_ them, i just really don’t like them. basically the same thing though.”

“It’s okay, if you wanted to hurt me, you would’ve already done it.” Chara responds calmly

Stretchy Bones sighs “wanna just walk to the house? i don’t feel like doing a shortcut.”

“Sure.” Chara replies

The group begins walking in silence towards the house which I assume is the same one in your universe. Your arms get tired from holding Tori, so you pass her onto Chara, where she carries her far more easily than you did. Suddenly, something pops into your mind, you have a very important question for Stretchy Bones.

“so uh, should we give each other nicknames?” You ask the group

“HELL YEAH!” Chara yells enthusiastically “NICKNAME TIME!”

“let’s start with… this guy.” You point at the taller skeleton

“How about… Hoodie.” Stretchy Bones sputters and then laughs “What?”

“chara, you’ve only given 2 nicknames so far and both them were fuckin horrible.” You say, suppressing a laugh, Stretchy Bones laughs even harder

Chara pouts, “Fine! Come up with one that is better!”

You think “earlier you called him ‘stretchy bones mcgee,’ and lemme tell you, that was golden”

“you’re not going to call me ‘stretchy bones mcgee’.” Stretchy Bones says while gasping for breath

“how about… just ‘stretch’?” You suggest

“yeah, that’s okay. stretch. my nickname is stretch now… huh.” Stretch says “okay, how about one for you.” Stretch points at me

“Okay! Have a good one!” Chara says excitedly

“please don’t make it bad.” You plead

“It’s AWESOME!” Chara yells, then gathers her composure “I thought that ‘Comic’ would suit you.”

You blink. _huh, that’s a good nickname for once, and it actually makes sense._

“that’s pretty good, i like it.” Chara looks proud

“I knew you would!” She pauses “Do I get a nickname?”

“yeah, just call yourself ‘knives’ or something, that’s the most memorable thing about you.” You say jokingly, Chara shivers

“U-uh. How about I just stick with ‘Chara’ for now?” You nod

“so, are we giving my bro a nickname too? it’s gonna be weird for me to call him sans if you’re also there.” Stretch asks

“I vote that we call him Blueberry, did you see him? His body is practically 90% blue!” Chara explains

“how about ‘blue’ for short?” Stretch says while raising a bone-brow

“Or yeah, we could do that too.” Chara shrugs

You sigh “okay, nicknames are sorted out. whadda we do when we get back at the house?”

“we can’t do much. the human is gonna come by in a few hours and that’s gonna screw some things up for sure.” Stretch looks off into the distance “do you remember the resets? assuming you’ve gone through some.”

“All of us do.” Chara looks at the floor

“even the goat?” Stretch points at Tori

“I’m not sure...”

“yeah, she does.” You answer for Chara

The group has arrived in Snowdin, it looks more lively than it normally would be at this time of day. You immediately start walking towards the house, the group follows close by. As you’re walking, you notice that the Grillby’s that is normally there is replaced with a place called Muffet’s, isn’t that place in hotland?

“Welp, looks like i’m not getting any burgers anytime soon.” Chara states

“huh? why would there be burgers here?” Stretch asks, confused

“In my universe instead of some place called ‘Muffet’s’ we have a burger joint called ‘Grillby’s.” Chara tells Stretch the situation

“there’s a guy who sells burgers named grillby in hotland, but everything is so unreasonably priced…” Stretch trails off

“That sounds like... Muffet to me.” Chara and You say at the same time, she blushes

“well, i think this place is good, we should grab some later.” Stretch says

The group continues to walk towards the house, we finally reach the outside of it. There are no noticeable differences between your house and this one, at least, none that you can spot.

Stretch unlocks the door and ushers us inside. The interior also looks pretty much the same, save for a few minor details. From the door, you can see Blue cooking up something in the kitchen, hopefully his cooking isn’t quite as bad as your brother’s.

“OH! PAPPY! YOUR HOME!” Blue rushes out of the kitchen in an apron that reads ‘sexy skeleton’ on it

“yeah bro, i’m here.” Stretch replies

“I’M MAKING SOME VICTORY TACOS FOR OUR FRIENDS! THEY’RE GOING TO BE EXTRAVAGANT, I CAN ALREADY TELL!” Blue runs back into the kitchen

You whisper to Stretch “is his cooking actually good?”

“heh… heh… nope.” Chara snickers

Stretch looks at Chara “hey uh… chara?” She nods “hand me the goat for a second.” She hands Stretch a sleeping Tori

He places Tori gently onto the couch, careful to harm her, she only has 1 HP after all. Speaking of stats, how much does Stretch have? You quickly check his stats…

 

Papyrus

LV 1                                                                                  EXP: 0

HP 1/1                                                                              NEXT: 10

ATK: 1

DEF: 1

WEAPON: none

ARMOR: none

GOLD: 100 KILLED: 0

 

He seems to be clean, not that you doubted that. His attack, defense, and health are the same as yours and Tori’s, so I guess we got another member of the ‘Our Stats Are Fuckin Trash Club.’

You grab a blanket near the couch and drape it over Tori’s unconscious body, she snuggles into the cushions, which is pretty damn cute to watch. Stretch and Chara have situated themselves at the table, where they’re now talking quietly. You don’t really feel like invading on their conversation, so you opt to sit at the base of the couch near Tori’s face. For now, you’re just waiting for something interesting to happen, so you just sit there and bask in the calmness of the air, it reminds you of old times. Old times when you would watch shitty Mettaton movies with Paps, old times when you would work on another science project, old times when you would cook a quiche for yourself because Papyrus was running late. You would give just about anything just to go back to those times, there were no worries about time-manipulating humans at that point.

But that doesn’t matter, what does matter is the fact that you’re so goddamn comfortable that it’s unreal. Slowly, your mind drifts off into a light slumber, the relaxing atmosphere wrapping you up in a blanket.

 

\-----------------

 

You’re being shaken lightly on the shoulders, as you peel open your eyes, you finally adjust to being awake.

“Hey, sleepybones, wake up.” Tori’s soft voice sounds like bells to your ears, you almost wanna fall back asleep

“oh, hey tori.” You wave lazily at her, she giggles

“Come on, get up. There’s some food at the table.” She lends you soft hand

“nah, i’m gonna sit here for a little bit longer, i just woke up.”

“Oh yeah…” She blushes unexpectedly “M-mind if I keep you company?”

“not at all.” You pat the place next to your side, she sits down

“So uh…” She starts “What do you think of these two skeletons?” She jabs her thumb at the direction of Stretch and Blue

“they act pretty damn similar to people that we know, so i think that they’re pretty cool so far.” You stretch out your bones to relieve the aches in them, Tori watches you intently

She blushes “Y-yeah. I think that too.”

The both of you relax your bodies, Tori leans her body into yours slightly. Tori seems to be fidgeting a lot more than normal. Her eyes are scanning the floor erratically, what is she thinking about that could be so bad?

“what’s up?” You ask Tori calmly

“Huh? What do you mean?” She says defensively

“something’s eatin’ at ya, and maybe i should know.” _She looks like she's… nervous or concerned._

“N-nothing…” She looks away

“it doesn’t sound like nothing.”

“I’m just worried. About the human in this universe, I mean.” _oh_

“...me too.” You sigh and slump your body

“Sans… or uh, Comic.” You look at Tori “Look into my eyes.”

“sure.” You gaze into Tori’s dark pink eyes, they look beautiful

She looks back “The human won’t do anything to us, okay? Nothing.” She scoots closer

“you sure about that?” She presses her forehead against yours gently, your cheekbones stain blue

“Of course I am. What could one human do to a bunch of really powerful guys? Nothing.” She grins widely

“...you’re right.” You look away out of habit, breaking the eye contact, Tori looks… disappointed for some reason

Her forehead is still connected with yours “Don’t beat yourself over things that you can’t control. I know that probably sounds hypocritical of me, but it’s good advice.” She presses harder

“i don’t know if i can do that though.” _I seriously don’t think that i could achieve that_

“I don’t know if I can do it either, but it’s worth it to try, isn’t it?”

You sigh “i guess.”

“Good.” She backs away from you slowly and looks you straight in the eyes “Now, let’s get some tacos, shall we?” She offers a hand to you from above

“in a second. just... buddy, if ya need someone to talk to, i’m here, okay?”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

You accept her hand graciously “thanks for helping me out”

Tori blushes “No problem, it’s good to have someone who understands my point of view.” She says as you get onto your feet

The two of you walk to the dinner table, you see that Stretch is grinning and Chara looks utterly disgusted. What could they be talking about that got those expressions? As you take a further inspection of the tacos… why the fuck are they covered in glitter? You decide to shrug it off, there is no way that this is as bad as Pap’s spaghetti. You pull a chair out to sit on, Tori does the same and takes a seat.

The tacos in front of you don’t look very good at a closer view, but what the hell, you’re hungry. You grab one and bring it to your mouth, Stretch’s grin grows wider. You nearly choke on the horrendous taco, but don’t because Stretch was practically burning a hole in your skull with all of the glaring, he probably doesn’t want me to talk trash about his brother’s food.

“IS IT GOOD?” Blue asks you energetically, Stretch continues to glare

“it’s pretty good.” You reply, _these tacos are ‘pretty’ ass_

“HOW ABOUT YOU, MISS TORIEL?”

“It’s good, but it could do with less glitter.” Tori suggests, she obviously didn’t like the taco

“I’LL TAKE THAT INTO CONSIDERATION… **”** Blue rubs his chin thoughtfully “DO ANY OF MY LOVELY GUESTS WANT MORE?”

“we already ate before getting here, so I think we’re good.” You say, actually, you have a question that would probably be best if it was answered, “how long was i asleep?”

“About an hour. God, you looked so cute…” Chara mumbles the ending part, you had no idea what they said

“when is the human getting here?’ You ask with a slight darkness in your voice

“We got like a couple more hours until they arrive.” Stretch says sorrowfully

“IS NO ONE GOING TO EXPLAIN THIS SITUATION WITH THE ‘OTHER’ HUMAN?” Blue seems irritated that he is left out, it’s obvious that he wants to know badly

“who’s gonna explain this to him?” Everybody looks away “you wanna do it, stretch? he’s your brother after all.”

“...yeah i will. let’s do this upstairs, alright?” Stretch agrees

“UH, SURE... IN MY ROOM!” Blue guides Stretch up the stairs and into their room, the door closing slightly rougher than it probably should have

Chara leans back on her chair and puts her feet on the table, her eyes are closed and are breathing slowly. Her hands are pressed against the back of her head, she seems to be collecting her thoughts on the things that happened today. Tori is leaning her head onto her hand, gazing into nothingness. You get up from your chair and move over to the couch, Chara and Tori hop off of their chairs and join you shortly after.

Tori leans her head onto your shoulder, this simple gesture makes your face flush, you’re not used to people doing this to you. The TV is pretty much the only thing that you can think of doing right now, so you turn it on with the remote. Literally the first thing that you see when you turn it on is some robot guy who looks like a huge douchebag. There is a good chance that this is this world’s equivalent of mettaton, as seems to be doing some musical performance. The music sounds okay, but it’s hard to take it seriously when you look like a dingus. Tori and Chara don’t seem very interested, and neither are you, but it is good background noise so you leave it playing.

Now is probably a good time for a little reflection on what happened today. A lot of things happened today actually, you woke up to being goddamn nearly raped, but it is pretty obvious the Chara is trying to improve. Maybe you left her off the hook a little bit too easily, what she did was obviously not acceptable and maybe that should be punished. But that would just escalate the problem between you two. Later, you encountered the equivalent of you in Tori’s universe, and then you got transported to a new universe where a couple of familiar skeletons met with you. For some reason, you’re not very surprised that this was even possible, let alone the fact that alternate realities actually exist, honestly, you’ve not really reacted much to the sudden change.

Putting that aside, right now is an amazing time to let loose and chill out for a second. Today has been wild straight from the start, and it’s only going to get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought that Underswap would be a good Au to start with.
> 
> -Comic and Chara's bodies are more used to universe hopping than Toriel's, so they didn't pass out again
> 
> -Stretch really hates their human, but doesn't wanna admit it
> 
> -hmmmm i wonder what comic was feeling at the beginning
> 
> -Judges can see more information about a person than others
> 
> -Chara kinda cares about Comic and Toriel, but not really that much, it's more like Frisk that is guiding them to be better


	7. Discussion

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> pp extendus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why did this take me so long to write? it's a question that no one will ever truly know the answer to. hopefully the next one will be be better than this.

Chara sighs loudly “When are those two going to finally be down?”

“give them a minute, explaining resets is kinda hard to do to an audience that has no idea what it is.” You tell her

Chara grumbles “I’m just bored. Really goddamn bored.”

“How about we do something? Talk about stuff?” Tori suggests

“Like _what?_ ” Chara narrows her eyes

“Uh, um-”

You cut her off, she didn’t seem like she had an answer “how about we talk about our plans against the human?”

Chara scowls, Tori grips onto your arm lightly.

“I say that we just fight them in the Judgement Hall, or just fuck them up right here in Snowdin.” Chara says harshly

“It doesn’t matter what we do, they’ll always win if they can reset.” Toriel counters

“But I can res-” A panicked expression makes its way onto Chara’s face  “I can’t reset.”

A dozen problems buzz within your skull

“fuck.”

The room is silent. Like completely silent. No one dares to even let out a single peep. Chara can’t reset in this timeline, how the fuck are you gonna get out? Are we stuck here forever? You can feel a little bit of last remaining sanity crumble away. No no no no no no _no no no no no-_

 

I’ll never see my brother ever again.

 

It’s my worst nightmare.

 

It’s a nightmare and _I can’t fucking wake up._

 

I can handle the resets.

 

But I can’t handle a permanent loss.

 

Like somebody you love.

 

Papyrus. The shining star of your life, you practically raised him from the moment he was born. His gleaming smile could always fill you with happiness whenever you saw it, and now, you’ll never be able to see it ever again. So many of your favorite memories are just because Papyrus was there with you, that says a lot about how much you care for him. Your mind drifts off, _what could Papyrus be thinking right now?_ In his perspective, you just left without a trace, the human he saw disappeared with you. You can imagine that he would be absolutely torn over the loss of you, and that makes your heart lurch.

“What do we do?” Toriel says quietly

“Continue.” Chara says with a hollow tone in their voice “We’ll find something out.”

“But… how?’ Tori desperately says

“I don’t know.”

“...”

“...”

“We can find a way…” Tori repeats to herself a few times

“we could test out another theory?” You throw out the suggestion

“Heh… heh… yeah.” Tori presses into you harder, the grip on your sleeve clutching tightly “We’ll get back home.”

You begin slowly rubbing Tori’s back to comfort her, from what you know from your brother, physical contact is the best way for someone to feel needed. What Tori needs right now is to feel like she means something, so this is the best idea. It seems to have worked, as she has practically melted into your touch, her back pushing lightly into the palm of your hand. Pretty much the whole side of her body is touching yours at this point, you begin blushing slightly, you weren’t expecting them to get this close to you. For some reason though, you feel like this is right, It’s like Tori belongs right next to you.

“Sans…” Tori says your name softly, not my nickname, you almost didn’t catch it because of how quiet it was

You continue rubbing her back, you realize that your hand has drifted lower than it is y’know, socially acceptable, so you put it up a little higher. Tori bites her lip and leans into your touch. After a minute of soothing her, you decide that it is time to find to the best course of action. You take your hand off of her back and pat her on the head, _she is so goddamn soft._ She looks disappointed that you had to end it, but still looks refreshed anyway.

“you okay?” You ask using the calmest voice you can muster

“Uh, um ye- uh, umm…” Her face is practically scarlet in coloring, she seems at loss for what to respond with

“i’ll take that as a yes, tori.” You pet the top of her head, she blushes harder, It’s so cute when she does that

“W-what were we talking about?” Tori asks

“the human.” You say kind of bluntly

“Oh… yeah...” She looks away “I can handle thi-” The bedroom door opens very loudly

“i guess we’ll continue this conversation later.” You whisper to Tori, she nods in response

Blue and Stretch walk out of the bedroom, Blue looks happy and sad at the same time, while Stretch just looks relieved to have done anything at all. They walk down the stairs quickly and stop in front of the couch.

“SO, WHAT DO WE DO?” Blue says

“In which regards?” Chara asks

“WITH THE HUMAN. THE OTHER, MEAN HUMAN. MURDERY HUMAN.” Chara flinches at the term ‘murdery human’

Chara seems to have a solution “I say that we tie them up and keep them alive.” You’re surprised, honestly, you wanted to kill them, Tori and Stretch look just as surprised as you

“won’t they just reset time again?” Stretch inquires

“You have to die to for a load or for a reset, there is a difference between a reset and a load.” She pauses after noticing the confused looks on our faces “A reset pushes time back all the way to the beginning, while a load goes back to your previous save. Like a video game, kinda.” She shrugs

“so if we just capture them and keep em’ alive, we can do whatever we want with no worries?” You ask Chara

“Yeah basically.”

“i totally should’ve done that to you.” You jokingly say

“Mmm, I wouldn’t mind.” Chara says in response

“i swear if i hear one more sex joke come out of your mouth…” You trail off

“Will Master give me a bad time~?” Chara wiggles her eyebrows and winks, you notice that her eyes were blue for a second but then changed back to red

“are you fuckin kidding me…” You mutter, Stretch glares at you in annoyance for swearing

“SO WE’RE GOING TO CAPTURE A HUMAN? LIKE MY JOB?” Blue asks, he sounds both puzzled and excited

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“SHOULDN’T WE REPORT THIS TO ALPHYS?”

“Why would we report this to a scientist?” Tori sounds confused

“alternate realities, tori.” You remind her

“Oh yeah, who is Alphys in this world?”

“THE CAPTAIN OF THE ROYAL GUARD! AND MY MENTOR!” Blue says excitedly

“I seriously cannot picture how that would look…” Chara says

“PROBABLY AMAZING!” Tori snickers

“Now I’m wondering who Undyne would be…” Chara mumbles

“UNDYNE IS THE ROYAL SCIENTIST! WE DON’T TALK MUCH, BUT I HEARD THAT SHE IS VERY GOOD AT HER JOB!”

“Okay, now that is actually impossible.” Chara states “How does goddamn _Undyne_ become a scientist?”

Blue ignores the question “IS ANYONE GOING TO ANSWER MY QUESTION?” Blue sounds slightly frustrated

“uh, no bro, do **not** mention this to alphys, okay?” Stretch answers for the group, that was going to be our answers anyway

“WHY?”

“because the human will die, and then time will rewind on itself.” Blue’s eyelights turn dimmer and smaller

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY ‘THE HUMAN WILL DIE,’ ALPHYS WILL KEEP THEM SAFE!” _welp, this is going to be fun to explain_

“uh…” Stretch coughs “alphys kills humans, bro.”

Blue’s eyelights completely disappear “OH.”

“i thought you knew that?” It’s easy to tell that Stretch knew that Blue had no idea that the royal guard was meant to kill humans, but you don’t bother to think on it any further

“I DIDN’T…” Blue sounds conflicted

“well, at least all of the training paid off, you can still help us with the human.” Stretch tries to make the tone of the conversation lighter, Blue’s eyelights come back

“YEAH… YEAH! WE CAN CAPTURE A HUMAN! I CAN BRING JUSTICE TO THIS CRIMINAL!” Blue’s mood shifts in a second

“course we can do it bro, we just gotta try.” Stretch genuinely smiles

“SHOULD I PREPARE MORE TACOS?” _no, please no, just only one taco made me want to vomit_

Stretch notices our reaction and plans for a solution “how about we lay off the tacos for a bit, those take time to make and we’re kinda short on that. i say that we stop by muffet’s and grab some grub.” Stretch offers a better solution

“I HATE MUFFET’S THOUGH. TOO MUCH SUGAR.” Blue pouts

“majority votes, bro. raise your hand if you wanna go to muffet’s.” Everybody raises their hand except for Blue, he looks even more irritated

“UGH!” He throws his hands up into the air “YOU CAN GO. I’LL COME WITH YOU SO NOTHING BAD HAPPENS TO ANY OF YOU. EVERYBODY’S STATS BESIDES THE NICE-HUMAN’S ARE ONLY 1! I COULDN’T AFFORD TO LEAVE YOU UNSUPERVISED!” You and Tori look at Stretch, it’s obvious that he left out a few details that he didn’t want his brother to hear, like the fact that we’re all pretty damn strong

“Ugh. Let’s go then, I’m bored of sitting here and doing nothing.” Chara says while getting up from the couch

“yeah yeah, let’s go.” You get up and offer Tori a hand, she accepts it

“how much g do we have?” Stretch asks the group

“50.” Tori says

“I got 50 too.” Chara adds on

“100.” You say

“and i got 100 also.” Stretch says “i think we’re good for all of us.”

“Then let’s go. I wanna have some fun before we get into the serious stuff.” Chara rushes everyone

In just a little bit of time, everybody is moved outside of the house, Stretch locks the door. You stuff your hands inside of your warm hoodie, Tori does the same. The group walks towards Muffet’s, honestly you have no idea how this will turn out, the food is probably going to be like the one in your universe. Whole lots of sugar and pretty good, definitely not Grillby’s level of good, but still decent nonetheless. You kinda hope that you can find something that you haven’t had before, new things are always pretty cool. As you arrive to the front of Muffet’s, you begin to notice small cobwebs on the windows and near the door, _neat._ Everything seems to be a light purple color, kinda like the ruins.

“ok, we’re here.” Stretch announces “let’s go inside.”

You follow Stretch inside, the rest of the group follows in tow. Chara and Tori gaze around in wonder, you do the same, everything looks so different from what you’re used to. Stretch takes a booth, Blue climbs in with him. You take the seat across from Stretch, your body is pressed slightly against the wall. Tori and Chara join you on the same side, the booth is long enough for the three of you to be in there at once. Muffet drops by the booths to give us a menu, she stares at us in an indecipherable expression.

“Hello dearies, welcome to my bakery, I don’t think we have been introduced.” She reaches a hand out for Tori

She takes it and shakes it firmly “Uh, hello! My name is T-” She catches herself midway through “My name is Tori.” She states simply

“And my name is Muffet. Ring this bell when you’re all ready to place an order.” She places a bell on the table “Actually, I haven’t seen any of you three anywhere, are you visiting?” She points at us with three of her arms

“visiting. gonna crash here for a bit at the skelebro’s house.” You answer a little bit too quickly

“Mmhm” Muffet considers “It’ll be great to see a few new faces around here. Well, I’ll get out of your hair for now. Ahuhuhuhu…” She walks away from the table

You begin to read the menu, there seems to be the usuals, spider donut, croissants, cider and a whole lot of assorted goodies. After reading the menu for a little bit, you notice a nice chocolate cake. It describes it as being sweet and light, not too heavy with all of the frosting, it also says that it has ‘lots of chocolate’ in it, this is perfect for Chara.

“hey chara, check out this cake.” You point to the cake on your menu

“What- oh.” She flips to the page you’re on and reads the description “That sounds pretty good actually, I’ll get that.”

“cool.”

There seems to be so much different options for you to choose from, but you finally decide on getting a few spider donuts. It’s probably best to get something reliably good. You place your menu into the center of the table, the rest of the group soon follows suit. Chara rings the bell, Muffet appears a minute later.

“Are you ready to order, dearies?” Muffet asks politely

“Uh, yeah.” Tori says

Everybody lists off their orders to Muffet, she writes them down on a notepad of paper. Afterward, she thanks us for our time and promptly leaves.

“so, how did you guys even get here?” Stretch asks suddenly

“a shortcut and a reset.” You respond simply

“how does that even work?” Stretch inquires

You explain the theory that you came up with in the best detail that could possibly be explained.

“huh... i guess that _could_ work.” Stretch scratches his chin thoughtfully

“and it _does_ work. cuz we’re here now.” You say

“so if you were to do another reset-shortcut, would you get thrown into another universe?” Stretch says

“yeah, that’s what i just said.”

“now hear me out, what if it has something to do with the shortcuts and not the reset part?” Stretch looks as if he stumbled upon something great

“that doesn’t make sense, the only reason we got sent here was because of a reset.” _it doesn’t really make sense that it would only be because of the shortcuts, it was obviously the determination interfering with my magic that got us here_

“okay, now listen up, because this may be hard to explain.” He takes a breath “let’s start this off with a question, do you have determination in your soul?”

“yeah, me and tori both do.”

“what if it was your own determination that was interfering with the shortcut? not your human’s?”

“but i always do shortcuts, there’s no reason that it would only act up now.” You counter

“maybe some human determination got inside of you? it would be possible that their soul gave you the leftover dt of the reset.”

“that doesn’t explain why i first arrived in tori’s universe, at that point i wouldn’t get the determination boost you’re talking about.” _maybe it has something to do with your souls? yours and charas, you mean._

“did you compare your soul and the hu- i mean chara’s?” Stretch asks

You sigh “not yet, but we can do that later probably.”

“If you want to, I’ll do it.” Chara volunteers

“later.” You respond

Stretch continues “well, if your souls somehow got linked, it would be possible that dt went from one soul to another.”

“are you implying that we’re bonded?” _please don’t let this be the case, i will fuckin eat my shirt if its true_

“uh, no. a bond isn’t the only way for two souls to be close. sometimes it just does that.” Stretch shrugs

“good, because if i was bonded with chara, i would be **boned**.” Tori snickers

“but hey, if my theory about you having more determination is true, oh boy.”

“wouldn’t i melt if i had more dt though? it happens to literally every other monster.” _checkmate_

Stretch already has a counter “newsflash, but pretty much any amount of dt would melt any monster. the only reason you aren’t melting is because you were made in a lab like me.” _wait,_ _how does he know about that?_

“how do ya know about that?” You sound surprised

“a really good hunch.” _a damn good one at that_ “well, a monster made synthetically can have loads more dt than normal monsters if ya haven’t noticed.”

“we should check the amount i have in my soul when we get back. that could help us if that is true.” You compromise “so basically you’re telling me i stole some of chara’s dt?”

“yeah basically.” Stretch answers

“isn’t there the chance that tori also took some too?”

“i guess…”

Tori answers your question “Uh, maybe. I remember feeling very… weird before I passed out in the void.”

“weird as in…?” Stretch questions while raising a bone brow

“I felt like I was compelled to do everything I wanted to do…” A look of realization makes its way onto Tori’s face “Oh wait isn’t that determination?”

“welp, that explains it.” Stretch leans back into his booth and closes his eyes “that should help us out.”

“so, if i _do_ have a load more dt in my body than normal, i basically have the power to go to any alternate reality?” You question, that’s basically what Stretch was saying

“maybe. obviously you didn’t intend to get here, it was chosen by random. maybe if you concentrated hard enough you could force it to bring you to a certain location.” Stretch tells you “but for now, you’re probably just restricted to just moving randomly.”

“i guess most of this is probably pretty helpful…” You trail off “thanks for helping us out.”

“it would be kinda hard not to, this is the only interesting thing that has happened in so many resets…” Stretch responds “plus, i wasn’t gonna leave you hangin’.”

“but uh, most of this doesn’t really matter because of one small fact.” You say with a thin layer of sweat on your skull

“what’s that fact?” Stretch says roughly

“um…” You cough “chara can’t reset ever since she got in here.” _the beans have been spilled_

He sighs “that’s okay. we can fix that somehow. maybe we could build something that simulates the amount of dt that a reset does.”

“we could…” you respond

Right on cue, Muffet arrives with all of the baked goodies that everyone has ordered, excluding Blue because he didn’t want anything. You and Stretch abandon your previous conversation, all you care about right now is some good food and chilling out for a bit before the storm. You grab the first of your spider donuts, taking the time to appreciate the craftsmanship on the top. There are spiderwebs made out of sugar decorating the frosting, to you, it looks pretty damn good for a donut. Your first bite is greeted by a pleasant sweetness, you hum in approval. It’s pretty much as remember these being from your universe, Papyrus was always a fan of these, so after your shift at the lab, you used to grab a few. You remember sitting at the table watching him enjoy what he would call “sugary bread,” it was honestly super cute.

After polishing off the first of your donuts, you survey the others in the group. Blue has head propped up on his hand, his expression looks distant. The other three are eating their respective treats.

After a few minutes pass by, you’re finishing up the last of your donuts. You traded one of yours for a croissant from Tori, it was a pretty good deal. Everybody else seems to be done, aside from Chara who is still eating her cake, your eyes lock with hers on accident when you were observing her. She smiles at you and cuts a small piece from her cake, you shake your head to object, you’ve had enough sugar for today.

“Aw come on comedian, don’t you want some?” Chara asks you while smiling eerily

“i’m good.” You shake your head again

“I _insist._ ” She places the piece on a small plate

“uh-” You’re cut off when she pushes the plate towards me

She adds a little bit more force into her words “I **_insist_** _._ ” There’s now a fork on the plate

“s-sure kiddo.” You grab the fork and take a forkful of cake, it tastes pretty good, you even take another bite

“Is it good?” She demands, her eyes flash blue

“it’s pretty good.” _that’s pretty much all you care about it_

“Mhm.” She hums “You got a little something right here...” She puts a finger on your mouth and wipes away a little bit of chocolate, _okay that is a little bit closer than you should get, kiddo_

Chara begins lick at her fingers very slowly, _is she trying to tease you or something?_ She remains in constant eye contact while licking away to the chocolate on her fingers. A smile stretches on her face, you suddenly don’t feel so comfortable anymore. _Why the hell is she even licking her fingers? There’s a napkin literally sitting right there- oh my god now she’s sucking them too._ You feel your face heat up, this seems to encourage the kid even more.

“kiddo…” You can’t come up with any words to say

Her eyes are still blue “What’s the problem, Sans?” She says smugly

All you can offer is an awkward smile.

“Good.” She gives one last lick over the length of her whole hand, she cleans herself up with a napkin afterward, you notice her eyes flicker back to red “Are you guys ready to go?”

“YES.” Blue responds quickly

“sure.” Stretch says

“y-yeah.” You say, still kinda flustered from the previous situation, Tori gives a thumbs up

After paying for your meal and thanking Muffet, the group leaves to sit around at the house.

For some reason, you feel as if the human you’re going to meet will be one huge dickhead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmmMMMMM G00d SH1T
> 
> -Blue knows about his and Stretch's past, so he doesn't question why his brother was made in a lab
> 
> -Tori legit can't handle anything bad without help from others
> 
> -chara is still a dickhead


	8. Crooked Smiles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> no ***epic*** fight scene, but it will appear in a chapter coming up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> why did this take me a week to write. it isn't even that good, the pacing of the story is way too fucking fast, and then it goes way too slow.
> 
> Chapter POV for Stretch: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16392350/chapters/39050404

Stretch unlocks the door for everybody, you’re the first to walk inside of the cozy household. You collapse of the couch, I gotta have enough energy to fight the human, and your back still kinda hurts from sleeping in an awkward position earlier. Not only that, but you feel as if the day will just drone on forever, does it ever end? In all honesty, you have so many things weighing down on your mind that it hurts, so many problems and not enough solutions.

“wake me up when the anomaly gets here.” You say tiredly

“Which one?” Chara grins

You ignore her smartass side comment “fuck the anomaly.” Chara’s grin grows wider “don’t you dare.” You threaten

“I wouldn-”

You cut her off “ **don’t you dare.** ” _no more fuckin dirty jokes_

“I wouldn’t mind.” She bursts out laughing, you throw a couch cushion at her in return, she fails to catch it in time

You grumble “just wake me up when we’re ready to go. i feel tired as hell and i don’t feel like dying today.” You state roughly

“At least don’t take up the whole couch. Sit upright or something.” Chara crosses her arms

“fine fine.” You sit up and lean into the back of the couch

Your mind already feels hazy, you close your eyes and drift off into sleep. Just before actually being fully intoxicated by sleep, you feel a slight pressure on the right of your body, is someone leaning onto you? I guess it doesn’t really matter, you’re too tired to care about small things like that.

 

\------------------

 

“Hey, sleepybones, wake up.” A calm voice says above you “What’s up with you and sleeping so much?” The voice says

“just five more minutes pyrus’...” You slur tiredly

“Just get up.” A light tugging on your sleeve begins

You snuggle into a blanket that you don’t remember putting there “mmhm…”

“Come on… we gotta deal with the human soon.” Your eyes snap open at the term ‘human’

“okay, i’m up now.” You blink your eyes a few times “whadda we doin’?” You look up and see Tori crouched down to your eye level

“Human. We gotta go do that.” Tori says with a slight grin on her face

“oh yeah. that.” You sigh “fuck, that is going to be a pain in the **neck**.” You remember when your brother died, when his body became dust and only his head remained

“Yeah… Stretch says that they’re going to come out of the ruins any time now. Thought it would be best for me to wake you up now.” She explains

“thanks.” You say while stretching out your bones “who put the blanket on me?”

“I-I did. You looked cold.” Tori confesses

“well good on ya tori. my sleep was a million times better.” She blushes

“It's no big deal…” She says quietly

“bigger deal than you think. where are the others?” You asked while looking around the room

“Outside, near the ruins door. We’re going to grab the human and then leave, you could help us a lot.” Tori smiles warmly

You become entranced in Tori’s face for some reason, it just seems so interesting to you all of a sudden. The dark pink coloring of her eyes is comparable to one of the sunsets you’ve witnessed on the surface. Snow white fur coats every inch of her body, and it looks so beautiful to you at this moment. A genuine smile is on her face, seeing somebody else purely happy is something you don’t really see very often, that makes your heart leap for some reason. The fact that _she is so close is unreal and you just wanna-_

“Uhh…” Tori fidgets around “Is there something on my face…? Or…?”

You realize that you have been staring for too long and look away “nah, n-nothing. howzabout we go, huh?” You say quickly, you just notice that your hoodie is mysteriously off “where’s my hoodie...”

“Here.” Tori hands you your hoodie after picking it off of the floor, it’s neatly folded

“didya also take off my hoodie?” You question while looking at Tori decisively

She blushes “I also did that too… sorry.”

“it’s ok. ya did a considerate thing that you shouldn’t be sorry for.” You pat the top of her head “let’s just meet up with the group, k?”

“Y-yeah. Let’s go.” You get up from the couch and onto your feet, Tori meets her eyes with yours

“Thank you, by the way. You’ve been so nice to me even though I don’t deserve it.” Tori says suddenly

“huh? whadda you mean by ‘I don’t deserve it’? course’ you deserve to be treated well, you’re a good person.” You respond with shock in your voice

“That’s what you think…” She says quietly

“...” You don’t know how to respond to that “...explain.”

“Have you ever done something that you wish you could take back?” She says hollowly “Have you ever had to hurt somebody you care about?”

“...yeah.” _your father._

“I’ve hurt so many people… let down so many others... “ She looks down at the floor “So why do you care? I’m just going to disappoint you in the end.”

“i don’t even really know at this point. but, heh, doesn’t mean i’ll stop caring for somebody i like.” You open your arms to offer a hug

She accepts the hug and pulls you in tight “If I mess up, I’ll understand if you hate me…” She says

“...ya won’t need to.” She grips harder

“I-I just got nobody to talk to…” You can hear the emotion in her voice “Nobody can relate, not that they would even care about my _stupid worthless words._ ” You can hear her sniffling

“hey, hey, tori, everything is ok, ya aren’t a bad person, no matter what you did. and uh, if you need someone to talk to, i’m always available.” _you could also use the counseling_

“Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay…” You can feel her chest breathing rapidly

“me and you, we’re actually the same in a lot of ways.” Silence. “i just uh, tend to keep my emotions inside of my body. keep that in mind if you’re having a problem.” _i’ll keep it in mind too_

“Okay…” She trembles slightly as if you make just one wrong step, she’ll collapse into dust, you can only respond by holding her tighter

After a couple minutes of sitting in each other's arms, basking in the comfort of having someone who is there for you, you decide that _oh shit the human how could you forget about that._

You begin to pull back “tori, the human-.”

“Not yet…” She mumbles

“tori we forgot about the human.” You say flatly

She pulls away reluctantly “Oh, yeah.”

After locking your hand with hers, you take a shortcut to the ruins door. The first thing you see is the group conversing quietly a little bit into the forest. From what you can see from here, they look pretty bored. You begin to walk towards them, they signal for you to come over.

Stretch is the first person to ask any questions, you note that he is smoking another cigarette “what took you guys so long?”

You answer “got hung up on something, it’s resolved now.” _that’s the truth_

“guess that makes sense.” He shrugs “i’m just happy that i get to teach my human a lesson. when you meet them, you’ll understand why.”

“i guess we’ll just wait and see.” You place yourself at the base of a tree, Stretch sits next to you, Tori walks away

“so, uh, comic, you ok?” Concern is painted in Stretch’s voice

“yeah i am.” _that’s what you think at least_

He hums “are you just saying that? you definitely don’t mean it. ya don’t look the best if i’m going to be honest.” _do i really look that bad to other people? and here i was thinking that i was good at hiding my emotions_

“what makes you say that?” You question

Stretch sighs “it’s pretty obvious that you have a lot of issues. a lot of issues that you can’t solve.”

“damn right.” You begin to slouch a little more

“sorry if this is a weird question but…” Stretch averts his eyes “are you… dating anyone? that little goat in particular.” _ok, what._

“i’m not, bud. how did you even come to the conclusion that we were dating? we’re like the opposite of a couple.” You explain

Stretch grins “go for it.”

“whadda you mean?” You stare at the ground

“if ya want something, go for it. for example” Stretch puts his finger in the air to emphasize his point “asking out the lil’ goat girl.”

Your cheeks immediately heat up “h-how about no. she obviously doesn’t like me.”

“what you just said implies that you like her.” Stretch grins wider

“w-what?! i didn’t mean it like that, i mean that like even _if_ i wanted to date her, it was off of the table anyways.” A layer of sweat forms on your skull

“keep telling yourself that, buddy. she ain’t even that bad either.” Stretch offers you a cigarette

“nah, i’m good, smoking ain’t really my thing.” You reject

Stretch shrugs “whatever ya want. good luck on your new date.”

You want to refute his point, but you know that it isn’t to get you anywhere, so you don’t do it. In the distance, you can hear the ruins door open up slowly, the unused stone doors making loud scraping noises. I guess it’s time to deal with the human.

“stay here. lemme go talk with them.” Stretch signals for you to sit down, so you remain on the floor, he takes a shortcut away

The rest of the group remains completely silent, Blue looks scared from what you can see from here. Along with him, Tori looks completely petrified, you swear that you can hear her hyperventilating. Chara just looks like their normal self, it’s almost as if this is ‘just another event’ to them, you wonder what goes on inside of their head when they encounter an obstacle like this. You have a small idea of how it’s like to have two people in your mind at once, ‘hectic’ would probably be a good explanation of how it’s like. Connected feelings and emotions is most likely something that would feel pretty damn foreign when you want to feel a different way about something.

So, what do you think about meeting this human? Mad. From how Stretch explained what his human acted like, it’s kind of hard not to hate them. At least your human has _some_ sort of moral system, even if is absolutely skewed and practically never even touched on. But honestly, Stretch seems like the type of guy to not be angered by many things, so if it can make him angry, then it’s probably going to make you feel the same way. You kinda hope that the human is a dick anyway so you don’t have to care about yet another person.

You see the human walk out of the ruins door with a sadistic grin plastered on their face. Dust coats their pants and striped shirt, you _seriously_ hope that it isn’t monster dust. From what you can see, they look pretty similar to your human, save for a few differences. They’re most comparable to Chara, not so much Frisk, but that’s probably because of the shirt that they’re wearing. The human walks quickly through the snow, leaving deep footprints in their wake. The loud crunch of a branch breaking can be heard in the distance when they get far enough away. You’re now watching them walk on the path, they make it to the gate that is blocking their path. Instantly, Stretch appears directly behind them.

Laughing. You hear laughing in the distance. Why the hell are they laughing? Did Stretch tell them that we were going to capture them or something, because that was seriously not a strategic move. Now that you’re listening a little bit closer, the laughter sounds close to the one that you would hear at the end of a genocide-run. Now that is grade-A fucked up right there.

It stops abruptly, now all you can hear is the light buzz of sound from the bridge. Stretch raises his hand, you can see it flicker orange for just a second, I guess this is our cue.

“hey, i think stretch is signaling for us.” You say quietly to the group

“Then take us to him, comedian,” Chara says, your nickname causes shivers to go down your spine

“grab onto me then. tori, you take blue” You offer a hand to Chara, she grabs it roughly “let’s go, no doin’ anything stupid.”

You take a shortcut to the trees practically right next to the gate, you see Tori and Blue appear a few feet away from your position. We begin to listen intently to the conversation between Stretch and the human.

“-so uh yeah. lemme get the chair.” You hear Stretch say, a chair appears out of thin air and into his gravity magic “ya got two choices, kid. you give up, or i make you give up. i’m giving you the chance to do whatever.” he shrugs “just pick what the best option is.”

“Oh HA! This is rich! You can’t defeat a GOD you idiot!” The human cackles maniacally, Stretch only smirks in response “I wanna see you even _try_ to win against me! That would be hilarious.”

“meh. your words don’t really mean anythin-” Stretch is cut off by a strike from the human’s toy knife, he dodges swiftly

“So how do you want to die? Fast and painless, or slow and agonizing?” The “human” threatens

“how about neither?” Stretch dodges another blow

“Not an option!” Another swing

“i’m still picking it.” Another dodge

“PAPY!” Blue yells suddenly, startling you, he runs out of the trees before you can tell him to stop

“Oh great, two for the price of one. Seems like you’re _really_ eager to get this run over, aren’t ya, Papyrus?” The creature says

“YOU WON’T HURT MY BROTHER, HUMAN!” A bone materializes in Blue’s hand

“Hilarious... you really think that it’s even possible to beat me?” The human laughs

You decide that you’ve had enough of this situation, you seriously don’t want either of the two skeletons to die.

“okay, conversation’s over.” You encase the human in blue magic and lift them into the air

“Hey what-” Shock is evident in their voice, when they see you, they’re speechless

“welp, nice knowing ya.” You say as nonchalantly as you can before slamming them down into the floor with all of the force you can possibly put in

“Is that all you’ve got?” The human teases after you take your blue magic off of them

“nope.” Your eyelights go blank “tie them up, stretch.”

Stretch teleports some rope into his hand. You pin the human into the chair roughly using blue magic, Stretch binds their arms and legs with the rope. The human attempts to struggle free, but the efforts are futile due to the fact that their restraints are much stronger than them. You chuckle to yourself at the sight in front of you.

“Let. Me. Go.” The human says while punctuating each word with venom

“nah.” You and Stretch say at the same time, you barely hold back a laugh at the human’s expression

The human looks at Blue as if he’s going to agree with them “I’M GOING TO HAVE TO AGREE WITH MY BROTHER…” Blue answers

“What about the goat? The one that looks like mo- the queen.” The human tries to convince us, Tori steps out from behind you

“You’re going to stay in there until we set you free, and you will obey that.” Tori’s tone shifts into something more sinister “ **We wouldn’t want you to die, now would we?** ”

“So I’m stuck, huh?” The human scans everybody with their eyes quickly “When I get out of here, I’m going to kill you all! Over and over and over until you _crack._ Hehehehehe… I’ll reset so much you’ll forget who you even are! I’ll get to savor all your deaths fore-” Chara punches the human straight in the face

“Shut up.” Chara says threateningly

“Make me, stupid human.” The human taunts

Chara grins and punches the human in the face again “Whip out the tape, Stretch.” She asks

“What the hell kind of nickname is ‘Stretch’ anywa-” The human is cut off by a hefty amount tape gagging their mouth

“welp, that was easier than expected.” You say in surprise

“SO WHAT DO WE DO NOW?” Blue rubs his chin thoughtfully

“we’re still not too sure on that bro…” Stretch answers

“Toss them into the house and then we get back into our universe.” Chara makes a plan

“we don’t know _how_ to get back into our universe, chara.” You tell her

“True, true…” A smile grows on Chara’s face “Wait! We have to come up with a nickname for our _lovely human._ ”

“how about ‘absolute shithead’.” Stretch suggests with humor in his voice

“PAPY! WATCH YOUR LANGUAGE! CHILDREN ARE PRESENT!” Blue scolds

Stretch snickers at the reaction of their unnamed human “k, bro.”

“I vote that we name them something along the lines of ‘Murderous Brat’,” Tori speaks up

“how about just ‘murder,’ you can practically taste the LV in their voice.” You suggest “plus, i get the feeling that they would kill us the first chance that they get.”

“i can agree with that. all in favor of naming them ‘murder’?” Stretch asks for a vote

Everybody raises their hand, even Blue, much to the human’s irritation.

“great. step one, we take them back to the house.” Stretch picks up Murder and the chair with blue magic “cya guys there.” He says while shortcutting

Shortly after, you and the rest of the group take a shortcut into the small house.

 

\------------------

 

Apparently, Murder is really goddamn annoying when they don’t get what they want. A huge emphasis on annoying. Just a few minutes after putting them in the living room, they began to struggle in their restraints and overall just be a nuisance to everyone in the same room as them. The sound of a chair hitting the floor repeatedly and the muffled sound of a voice isn’t the most pleasant thing to hear. Blue decided that Murder just needed “SOME TIME TO COOL DOWN,” he was basically suggesting that we take the tape off of their mouth, give them some time to breathe. Nobody rejected the idea, half of it being because we were all annoyed from the noise of them struggling, the other part being because we were curious to see how they would react. From out of the corner of your eye, you swear you could see Stretch scowl.

The following few actions were something we all suspected and also didn’t at the same time. Literally a couple of seconds after taking the tape off of their mouth, did true hell break loose. Murder began to laugh to themselves quietly, and when I say laugh, I mean the fucked up genocide-laugh. Pretty much everybody in the room was disturbed, Stretch didn’t seem fazed by this at all, this made me wonder what exactly he has been through, is this just the norm for him? The volume of the laughter begin to increase slowly until it was just downright crazy, I was seriously starting to think that they’re not the most emotionally stable human out there. After a while, Blue retreated to the bathroom to take a “SOOTHING WATER BATH,” it was pretty obvious that he wasn’t very comfortable with a psychopathic human in his house. Murder took this chance to show us how crazy they truly are, by being an absolute maniac.

“Aren’t you going to help an old friend out, Papyrus?” Murder says in a sickeningly sweet voice

“you aren’t _them._ ” Stretch responds in an angry tone “they’ll never come back because of you, you aren’t a friend.” _who are they referring to?_

“I wasn’t the one who did _that._ If you just gave up like a _good little skeleton_ , then we wouldn’t have any problems.” Murder says

“there is no way that this is my fault. this was all yours, if you just decided to _not_ kill everybody, then we could’ve been happy.” Stretch says bitterly

“You’re in denial, me and you both know that Chara will never say a word to you ever again.” Murder grins toothily “I can already see that you’re replacing them with this washed-up human. How sad.”

“you don’t know anything.” Stretch crosses his arms

“I know much more than you will ever know.”

“i doubt that” Stretch mumbles

“You _really_ miss them, huh?” Murder pauses “How does it feel knowing that you’re useless to everybody?”

Stretch doesn’t respond. Smart choice.

“Heheheh, well, get it through your thick skull. Know what your place is _before_ you begin speaking” Murder eggs him on

The room falls silent after Murder finishes up speaking, you’re suddenly glad that Blue is taking a shower, because he probably wouldn’t want to hear this.

_i guess this is what stretch meant by ‘you’ll understand why.’ i can definitely see why this human is a dick. literally every single pore of this human is oozing bad intent._

Tori turns the volume on the TV up to drown out the impenetrable silence, but it doesn’t really work. What you just saw was just a sneak peek of the relationship between Murder and Stretch, what the hell happens normally between those two? You seriously thought that you had it bad, but now you’re starting to think that you had it the easiest out of everyone. Hell, even Tori seems outright _traumatized_ from their experiences, all you really had to face was a few bad runs and some unhappy feelings, are you even comparable to anybody else?

In a way, you wish you knew what happened between Stretch and Murder, from just this tiny little tidbit, you can tell that something huge went on. From what you heard, something happened to the Chara of this universe, what actually happened is still kind of a mystery to you. It seems like at one point or another, Murder y’know, **murdered** everybody, and as of result of that, this universe’s Chara disappeared. This has obviously taken a toll on Stretch, why else would Murder use it as ammunition against him?

“So what do we do now?” Chara says after the moment of silence

“Die?” Murder suggests, everybody ignores it

“well, we already got a half-working theory, right?” Stretch says “didn’t we say that we were going to check out chara’s soul?” Stretch scratches the back of his skull

“You’re NOT going to check my soul.” Murder suddenly answers

“the other chara you idiot, you aren’t even chara in the first place.” Stretch tilts his head back on the couch

“Yeah, you can check my soul. There’s nothing _too_ special about it though.” Chara rubs her hand over her chest slowly

“what were we even going to do with em’?” Stretch says tiredly

“compare our souls or some shit. something about dt?” You try to remember your conversation at Muffet’s, but your mind keeps drifting to the moment when Chara was licking her hand, _what the fuck is wrong with me._

“You guys were going to compare both of your souls and then check the amount of determination you both have,” Tori tells us the answer

“oh, thanks.” _i can’t believe i forgot about something so important_

“let’s just get it over with.” Stretch’s eyes flip between you and Chara “what? you gonna take their soul out or do you want me to do it?”

You hastily get off of the couch and press your hand onto Chara’s chest “yeah, i got it.”

After a few seconds of concentrating your magic, you pull out the bright ruby-red soul. You take a moment to get a good look at it. The soul practically radiates determination, in your opinion, the coloring of the soul looks pretty nice. The main and secondary trait of the soul is obviously determination, so there is not really much to look at in that aspect. As you look a little bit closer, you can’t shake the feeling that something is… _off_. Out of all the resets, you’ve never had to see the human’s soul outside of a battle, it’s probably just the overall intent of the interaction.

No, something is definitely off. You pull out your soul to see if maybe that will solve the problem. Right off the bat, you can see the major differences between the two, you’re honestly pretty thankful that they look so different, if you and Chara were bonded, you would have no idea what to do at that point. The magic from your soul seems to radiate at an entirely different wavelength than Chara’s, not only that, but the main traits of your souls are contrasting to one another. How exactly is this information helpful? It’s just telling you nothing.

“uh stretch, i don’t really know what i’m looking for here.” You raise a bone-brow

“Stretch is a horrible nickname…” You hear Murder mumble in the background

“try to see if they have some of your magic in their body, poke around a bit.” He shrugs

Your body tenses up “u-uh, if i do that, won’t that be a little, um…” You avert your eyelights “intimate?”

“yeah.” Stretch pretends to yawn “you got a problem with that?” He says with one eye socket closed

“of _course_ i got a fuckin problem with that, i ain’t gonna go jerkin’ off my human.” _there is no way in hell that you’re going to touch chara’s soul, you’d rather eat papyrus’ spaghetti, and trust me, that is a bold statement_

“it’s for science though. would you rather that chara touches your soul instead? i’m pretty sure you know how soul magic works.” Your body goes rigid, _fuck, i’m stuck in a situation where both sides suck ass_

You let out a breath of air “i guess i’m just going to have to put my whole **soul** into science, even if it takes away some of my **sans** ity.” You hear snickering, you can’t tell who it’s from

“Wow, I like how nobody is asking for my input on this.” Chara says with an amused expression “I’d rather jerk off Comic than have him get me off.”

“i. fuckin. swear.” _why does every little thing have to be a dirty joke to them?_

“aaaaannnnnnnnddddddd i’ll give you two some privacy, here’s the key to my room.” Stretch throws the key at you, it bounces off your skull and onto the floor, you pick it up “don’t be too loud.” He winks

You rub your forehead “why does it have to be me?” You mumble

“Aw come on Sansy~” Chara tugs at the sleeve of your hoodie

“What in the serious fuck am I looking at right now?” Murder looks halfway between mortified and disgusted “Just, why?”

“me and you are in the same boat.” You gesture towards Murder “sometimes i start to think everybody is fuckin’ insane. either that or i’m insane.”

Chara hums “It’s rude to keep a lady waiting~” She says with her voice low and full of promises

“this is strictly for science, got it?” She nods “good, now let’s go.” You begin your way up the stairs, Chara follows in tow

You use the key that Stretch gave you on what you presume to be his room, luckily you got the rooms right. You place your hand onto the wall in search for a light switch, it feels like an eternity until you finally touch it. The room looks incredibly messy, it looks pretty damn similar to yours actually. A trash tornado resides in the corner, you smile at the fact that Stretch took the time to make one of these frustrating lil’ shits. A mattress with hastily applied sheets is the second thing that catches your eye, I guess this is where you’ll be examining Chara’s soul.

“k, take a seat on the mattress and get comfortable.” You order, Chara does it without question

“s-so, now's the part where i take out your soul.” You press your hand flat against Chara’s chest, she’s strangely silent

Again, the ruby-colored soul flows out of her body smoothly, you have it cupped within your hands, careful to not harm it in any way possible. You glance up from the bright soul and immediately notice that the normally red coloring of their eyes are replaced with a relaxing blue color. Wait, why is Frisk the one in control? Did Chara seriously leave on you? Now that you think about it, it will probably make this a little bit easier than before.

“hey kiddo, haven’t seen you in a while.” _frisk is definitely your favorite out of the two, they seem more relaxed and generous as opposed to chara_

“...Yeah.” Frisk begins to study your features “Chara said that they were going to take a break, so i’m here.” They say in their quiet voice

“well uh, that’s okay. sometimes i think about askin’ you stuff, but you’re never here.” You scratch your back awkwardly

She giggles “I’m _always_ here Sans, I just don’t like to talk very much.”

“i kinda figured that out on my own.” You shrug “but uh, let’s just do this test, huh kiddo?”

“Yeah, sure… can I ask a question?” Frisk asks with an innocent tone “How will this… feel? I remember Chara mentioning something about this, but I don’t remember any of it.”

 _welp, time to sugar-coat it to the max_ “it won’t hurt if that’s what you’re thinking. it will feel pretty… good, kinda like we’re connected in a way.” You explain “also, please do not ask me for more when we’re done with the test, cuz i won’t give you any.”

“I don’t really know why I would ask you for more… it must feel _really_ good.” Frisk comes to a conclusion

“uh, yeah. just don’t ask me for it, **ever**.” You attempt to punctuate your point, but Frisk pays it no mind

“Uh-huh, I won’t.” She smiles warmly “Just do whatever you were going to do with my... with our soul.”

You let out a much-needed breath “okay then. let’s start out by adding a low magic current through your soul.” Your fingertips glow with swirls of blue and yellow “ready?”

“Yes.” Frisk’s eyes hold a sudden small spark of excitement, I wonder what Chara is telling them now

You slowly press the thin strands of magic towards the soul. The expression on Frisk’s face is one of anticipation, _i guess she’ll be real surprised on what happens next._ The first strand of magic connects with soul, Frisk’s face contorts into one of pure bliss.

“H-h-holy…” She barely breathes out while arching her back

I guess that is a good reaction, it hasn’t really been tested whether or not this would hurt a human, so it could’ve been worse. You slightly increase the magic flow, a soft moan is elicited from Frisk, they begin to lay down on the mattress to get more comfortable.

Just from using your magic, you can determine that something within their soul definitely has some part of you in them. I guess I need concrete proof of whether or not it just _added_ the magic, or if it just _replaced_ the determination. If it straight-up just tossed the magic into the soul, then it would have to be removed or else Frisk and Chara would have to suffer the consequences. Manually removing magic from a soul is incredibly risky, it’s pretty much the last thing that you would want to do to them.

_so, if i were to add some focused blue magic here…_

Frisk’s eyes roll into their socket, they bite their lip to stifle the noises that they were going to make. It proves to be useless though, as a fairly loud moan comes out of their mouth. You notice a small stream on drool falling out their slightly ajar mouth, _i guess i’m doing real good at my job, huh? i bet ya like that, especially after ya took advantage of me, ya dirty fuckin slu-_

 

_THIS IS STRICTLY GODDAMN SCIENCE_

 

You take your mind away from those out of place thoughts and instead opt to pay more attention on the more important matter, trying to figure what the fuck is wrong with this soul. You can see much more clearly that the magic that was already there has thrown out some of the determination and replaced it. From this, it’s pretty reasonable to say that you were the one to get the DT that was thrown out, this is valuable information that you probably should write down. You remember that you stored some paper and a pen in one of your pockets, you write down all of the information you got as quickly as you can.

“O-oh… Sans...” You hear as you finish up the final note

“hm?” You lower your paper and get a good look at the human, Frisk is still in control

Her chocolate brown hair is spread out across a good portion of the mattress, her eyes look like they’re unfocused. Her head is pressed flush against the mattress, both of her hands and feet are gripping the sheets with great force. The way her tongue is hanging out lewdly shows you what they thought about the whole experience. If the soft moans coming from them are any indicator that they’re still _very_ aroused.

“...More.” They say with a distant look in their eyes

“what did i say earlier?” You ask with a roughness in your voice

“Uh, well, um…” Frisk can’t concentrate on forming any words

“ **what did i say?** ” You demand with a darkness you didn’t mean to have

This seems to spark a whole new type of feeling within them “Sans, please, please, i’ll do anything.”

“ya heard me. no.” This doesn’t seem to discourage them

“Pw-pwease?” They look at you with innocence in their eyes “I’ll promise to be good for you.”

“uh…” You suddenly feel very uncomfortable, you don’t know what to say

“I’ll be the _best_.” She softly grabs your hand and licks your fingers slowly “Anything for my Sansy~” Her voice is like honey to your ears

Your face flushes “t-this is for science, remember?”

Frisk grins “Maybe we can do a little bit of Chemistry instead.” She trails her fingers up your shirt “And I’ll be your test subject.”

“kid…”

“Come on, Sans. Loosen up a bit.” Frisk leans their face inches away from yours “Don’t you want to maybe… have a little fun? You’ve earned it for being such a good skeleton, and _I want you_. Sounds like a good bargain for the both of us.” She carefully caresses her fingers over your blushing cheekbones

“w-we got to give t-this info to the group.” You desperately flash the paper in your hands

“That can wait for now.” She lowers your arm

“this can wait. stop tryin’ to get in my pants or make me touch ya soul. when i say no, i fuckin’ _mean_ it.” You grab Frisk’s wrists harshly and pull them away from you

“Oh, s-sorry.” They seem halfway between shock and surprise, it seems more directed at themselves though for some reason “I-I don’t know what came over me. I-I’ll make it up to you, I… I won’t do it again.”

“good.” You release your grip on Frisk’s wrists, “alright, let’s deliver this information and then do somethin’ else.”

The human’s eyes faze back into crimson “Okay, I’m back.” Chara blinks their eyes a few times “God that feels weird every time I do that.”

“right when i was gettin’ used to frisk…” You say jokingly

“I swear, if I was in control for that little squabble between you and Frisk, the outcome would’ve been _much_ different.” Chara rubs her wrists “The shit you did with our soul felt pretty good though, grade-A performance right there.”

“don’t remind me, please.” You straight out your notes “i think we have been in this room for a little bit too long, let’s leave.”

“Stretch is totally going to try and talk to me about this…” You hear Chara say to themselves quietly

“and why would he talk to ya about this?” You inquire

“If you haven’t noticed, he’s been trying to play matchmaker with everybody, I swear he has a problem.” Chara slouches slightly

“i was, uh, asleep for most of my time here, so… i didn’t really get to talk to him much.” _maybe i should try actually being awake for once_

“Forgot about your insanely unhealthy sleeping habits, but yeah, let’s just go downstairs.”

Chara hooks her arms with yours for some reason, you don’t bother to ask because you don’t want to spend any more time in this room. You open the door and exit with your human, after locking it, you proceed to go down the stairs. On the last step, you unhook your arms and immediately make your way towards Stretch, he looks like he is sleeping on the couch. Blue is nowhere to be seen, his room seems to be taken, so you assume that he is in there doing whatever. Murder and Tori both have the same expression, utterly bored out of their minds. The TV is playing some musical performance from the douchebag-looking guy from earlier, no wonder everybody is so bored. Somebody put the tape back on Murder’s mouth, it now has the words ‘time out tape’ written on it in bright red marker. You assume that they were probably just being a dick to everybody in the room.

Tori and Murder perk up at the sight of you two, a genuine smile makes its way onto Tori’s face. Stretch is still asleep, or at least you think he is, Murder’s expression is indecipherable.

“hey.” You say quietly “i got all the info we need, so let’s just sit back and relax for a bit.”

Tori giggles with a hint of tiredness in her voice “Yeah, I can agree with that. Here, hand me the paper.” She outstretches a hand (paw?) to you, you pass it to her.

You plop on the couch next to Tori, Chara opts to sit at the table.

 

In all honesty, you like the quietness of the room.

 

It’s calm for once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mmmMMHHHH some of that spicy F r i s k - y action going on
> 
> -Murder is the MEGA DICK
> 
> -If you read the POV, you can see who came up with the plan to capture Murder
> 
> -Comic seriously has a sleeping issue


	9. Just me and you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> comic goes through some stuff

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> been having a load of schoolwork, so this took much longer than normal to write. i hope it's good, i wanted to get the chapter out as fast as i could.

It’s been a day since you’ve arrived in this universe, yesterday was one hell of a crazy ride. After giving your notes to Tori, everyone pretty much had no idea what to do at that point, so we just all got comfortable and watched a few movies. This morning, you woke up on the couch to the sound of something sizzling within a pan, you assume that Blue is cooking something, it better not be any more of those tacos.

You blink your eyes a few times to focus on your surroundings. The first thing that you notice is the blanket that is on you, it’s pretty damn comfortable. The second thing that you notice is Chara draped unceremoniously over your body. Any other day you would’ve immediately got them off of you, but right now you aren’t really feeling like doing it. Honestly, at this point you have no idea how to even react to anything.

 

Apathy is truly a god.

 

You spot Murder across the room with a vacant look on their face, the rope on their body looks slightly more worn out from yesterday. You have a few vague flashbacks of adding some tape to their bindings, it was a good idea that you did that, people probably would've died if you haven’t.

Murder looks in your direction, you can only smirk in response. Even through the tape on their mouth, you can still see the anger on their face. Serves them right for being such a major douchebag. Yesterday, we took the tape off for a minute to eat some food, and the first thing they did was call Tori an idiot. At least they actually ate something, you didn’t really feel like forcing food down their throat.

Stretch slowly walks out of the kitchen and into the living room, your eyes lock with his. He silently gestures between you and Chara, you give a thumbs up in response. A confused look makes its way onto Stretch’s face, but he shrugs and takes a seat at the kitchen table. This is probably a good indicator that Blue is almost done with whatever he is cooking in the kitchen, so it’s best if you wake up Chara.

You shake her body lightly “hey, kid, wake up.”

Chara stirs awake “Whadda you want?” She says tiredly

“it’s uh, breakfast time.”

“I don’t-” She pauses to yawn “I don’t really care.”

“kid, you’re literally on top of my body.”

“Yeah, and?”

“i just woke up and i don’t feel like dealing with your shit” You say gruffly

“Geez, fine.” Chara takes a moment to get off of the couch and stretch her body, she narrows her eyes when she catches you staring for too long

“See anything you like?” She says mid-stretch

You sigh “kid, not everything has to be… sexual.”

“It’s more fun if I make it out to be though.” She shrugs “Besides, what are we even going to have for breakfast?”

“no clue. i’m guessing those nasty-ass tacos though.” You respond

“I swear if we end up having to eat more of those.”

“let’s just hope.”

You slowly slide your way off of the couch and onto the floor, you climb onto your feet shortly after. At the table, there seems to be a few mugs of coffee sitting in front of some of the seats, you take your place right next to Stretch. After eyeing your coffee for a second, you take a cautious sip of the brown liquid in front of you, it seems cool enough to drink. It’s not too bitter, so it’s pretty good for a lazy morning like today.

“so, have a good time waking up?” Stretch says with a hint of tiredness

“uh, yeah…” You begin to notice the dark lines underneath his eye sockets “did... did you even sleep at all?”

Stretch chuckles “nope.” He grins “i wasn’t gonna leave ya guys so vulnerable to the murderous human in the room.”

_well, i guess it’s a good thing that he did that._

“thanks, i uh, don’t really wanna die.” You respond

“i kinda hoped so.” He says with half-lidded eyes “i’m gonna go take a nap, wake me when we actually begin doing something.” Stretch promptly falls asleep right onto the table

“Did he just…?” Chara says while approaching the table

“yep, he didn’t even fall asleep last night.” You respond

“Oh, wow.” She takes a seat

Blue appears out of the kitchen carrying a platter with an assortment of tacos, _oh god why me._ Now that you can get a better view of the tacos, you notice that glitter that was there last time is now mysteriously absent. He places the “breakfast” on the table and looks around the room in search of something.

“OH, MISS TORIEL ISN’T AWAKE YET…” Blue says with a slight hint of disappointment in his voice

“if ya want her to eat your cooking, just wake her up, she won’t really mind.” You suggest

Blue perks up at your words “YES! SHE WAS THE ONE WHO SUGGESTED THAT MY COOKING SHOULD IMPROVE! I TWEAKED MY RECIPE ESPECIALLY FOR HER!”

Blue picks up the pace and practically sprints to Tori’s spot on the couch. He hesitates for a second, and then grabs onto Tori’s shoulders firmly. With one quick motion, she is swept off of the couch and into Blue’s arms, where she is then deposited in the last remaining chair at the table. After a few seconds, Tori opens her eyes, only to shield them from the light shortly after.

“Ugh…” Tori groans “What time is it?” She says sleepily

“IT’S TIME FOR BREAKFAST, MISS!” Blue enthusiastically shoves a taco into Tori’s paw

Tori gives the taco an uncomfortable look but ultimately decides to take a large bite out of it. Her expression doesn’t look nearly as bad as yesterday’s, it honestly looks like she enjoyed the food that was given to her.

“It’s definitely better than the ones from yesterday.” Tori mumbles

“GREAT!” Blue strikes a heroic pose “I KNEW THAT THEY WERE BETTER!” Blue checks the time on his phone “NOW IF YOU WOULD EXCUSE ME, I HAVE TO GO TRAIN WITH MY PRESTIGIOUS MENTOR ALPHYS!”

“Seriously? Already?” Chara questions

“YES! ALPHYS ALWAYS HAS ME ON AN EARLY TRAINING SCHEDULE TO KEEP ME IN PEAK PERFORMANCE!”

“Uh, why would you go to train to capture a human… if you already have a human?” Chara looks confused

“THAT’S… THAT’S A PRETTY GOOD POINT.” Blue looks deep in thought “OH! SO SHE DOESN’T GET SUSPICIOUS AND BREAKS DOWN MY DOOR AGAIN!”

“Break down your door?” Chara raises her eyebrows

“YES, WHENEVER I DON’T ATTEND TRAINING, ALPHYS BREAKS DOWN MY DOOR IN SEARCH OF ME! AND WELL… IF SHE DOES IT NOW, SHE’LL HURT OUR HUMANS!”

“Yeah, I guess that makes sense.” Chara sits up in her chair “See ya later, then.” She waves Blue goodbye slowly

“I GUESS I’LL SEE YOU ALL LATER!” He briskly walks to Stretch’s side “SOMETIMES YOU CAN BE SO LAZY! IT’S THE MORNING AND YOU’RE ALREADY ASLEEP!” Blue says to Stretch, he doesn’t even react because he isn’t even awake

“WELL,” Blue clears his throat “BYE, NEWFOUND FRIENDS!” He sprints out of the front door

The door slams shut very loudly, you can hear the sound of “mwehs” echoing in the distance.

Tori raises her hand suddenly “Can I go back to sleep?”

“no.” You respond, _it’s best if everybody stays awake_

She grumbles “Fine…” Tori rests her head on the table

“So, Comic, what’s the plan?” Chara asks you

“i don’t even know, it’s too early for this shit.”

Chara sighs “Good point.”

“i would say that we chill out or something, but it’s probably best if we get some progress done.” You take a sip from your coffee “we’ve got pretty much nothing completed in this past couple of days.”

“Yeah, we probably should.” Chara stretches her body once again

“but yeah, let’s wait until later to actually do some science.” You yawn “in the meantime... i’m gonna go take a walk.”

“Seriously? A walk?” Chara narrows her eyes

“ya heard me right.” _walks are always good in the morning_

“Whatever makes you happy, Mr. Skeleton.”

You chug the rest of your warm coffee “fuck yeah, that hit the spot.”

“Is he leaving…?” Tori mumbles sleepily

“uh, yeah, see you guys later.” You zip your hoodie

“Byeeeeee.” Tori waves her paw tiredly

You wave back as you walk out of the door, it closes with a soft ‘click’. Now that you’re outside of the house and have free reign of what you do, where exactly do you go? Should you just walk your normal route? Or maybe you should do a little bit of exploring and get to know this universe better. That sounds like it would be pretty fun, but you’re honestly so goddamn tired that you can barely think straight, so you guess you’ll hold back on that for now.

Ultimately, you decide to take the path that you normally take at the beginning of a new reset. You take a shortcut to the bridge and begin taking your morning stroll. The crisp air of Snowdin brings you to your senses, the pleasant scent of pines calms your every nerve.

As you begin to notice your surroundings more clearly, you begin to notice something… weird. All of the puzzles in your universe are present here, it’s almost as if they were exactly the same puzzle, just made by different people. This really makes you wonder if this universe is basically the exact same as yours, just with minor differences and people’s personalities shifted around. Honestly, it just feels so surreal that you’re basically just walking through the puzzles that your brother made, but they’re made by another person who acts practically the same to him.

 

You sigh and put your hood on.

 

Not just the puzzles either, but the position of everything. Everything is literally in the same position that you can remember. The puzzles, stations, hell, probably even the trees. Something that really piqued your interest was the station that used to be your own. Now, instead of having a carving of your face on the top, it has a carving that resembles Stretch’s. Well, that really makes you wonder a few things about the reality of this universe. Maybe to find a bit more about this place you can take… a quick peek at Stretch’s station.

You begin to rummage through the insides of Stretch’s station. After searching for a minute, all that you could come up with is a few bottles of honey, you put them back because honey isn’t really your favorite. Why would Stretch be keeping honey in his station? Maybe he likes honey the same way that you like ketchup or the way that Tori likes whipped cream. There is also a couple of packs of cigarettes next to the bottles of honey, you begin to wonder where in the hell Stretch is even getting these down here. Cigarettes weren’t really the cheapest thing back in your universe. Stains of what you assume to be honey riddle the entire insides of the station, it reminds you of all of the ketchup stains back in your station. You back away from the station, there doesn’t really seem to be anything of too much note in there, so there is no real point to inspect it further.

And so, you continue your walk down the path. The path of trees on either side on you gives off an eerie vibe. Your body turns cold, walking down this area suddenly doesn’t feel like a good idea anymore.

But you don’t care, you honestly just want to get away from everyone for a minute or two. Staying in a cramped area for a long time can seriously make you go insane, and that’s the last thing you want to have now.

You’re now standing in front of the towering ruins door, it would normally feel welcoming, but all you can feel is the numbness in your ribcage. After eyeing the door for a second, you take a seat at the base of it and give a few knocks out of habit. You wait patiently for somebody to appear and answer your calls, but nobody comes. A sinking feeling creeps its way into your soul after you realize what just happened.

_wait, didn't the kid kill the person behind this door? the amount of lv they had blatantly showed that._

 

Fuck.

 

You stumble onto your feet and begin running. All you want to do is get away from the door, you don’t want to be reminded of how everybody you cared about died.

But it’s too late, it’s the only thing you can think about now.

 

_the way the kid smiles like a maniac whenever they enter a fight._

 

_the way they enjoyed slicing your brother in two._

 

_the way they watched undyne become a creature of nightmares._

 

_the way that they always knew that they could do anything they wanted, and nobody could do anything about it._

 

_the unperceivable amount of glee on their face after they struck you down and watched you melt into dust._

 

_heh._

 

_it’s almost as if the world is just one big joke._

 

_and your the only one who doesn’t get the punchline._

 

_but somehow,_

 

_it’s still_ **_hilarious._ **

 

In a desperate attempt to get away from your burning emotions, you take a shortcut to the house and begin running towards Waterfall. A little peace and quiet in your favorite spot can help you clear your mind. The dense fog limits your vision, you can barely see anywhere in the near distance. You’ve stopped running at this point, the slippery snow makes it so you can’t move anywhere too fast.

You sigh once again and clutch at the insides of your pockets harshly.

You begin to notice the fresh tracks made in the snow, the spacing between each print shows you that they were in a hurry. Whoever they were must’ve had something important to attend.

All of a sudden, you begin to hear the distinct sound of snow crunching underneath of a shoe. You whirl your body around in search of the noise, you really don’t feel like having somebody suspicious near you. What you saw next is the last thing that you would’ve expected.

“What a surprise meeting you here… Comic? Wasn’t that your name?” The murderous human says

“how the fuck did you escape?” _is… is everybody dead? did they let murder go? what the actual fuck is going on?_

“God, you guys are **idiots!** ” Murder cackles “What kind of idiot would just go to sleep right in front of somebody that’s going to kill them?”

“you didn’t…” _please, no._

“HA! I’m starting to wish that I did, the look on your face would be priceless.” Murder pretends to wipe a tear from their eye, “But no, I wish to toy around with your group for a little bit longer before _I watch you all suffer a slow death filled with agonizing pain._ ”

“that doesn’t really sound very fun.” _maybe i can sidetrack them long enough so the rest of the group gets over_

“Oh it’s going to be fun, _really_ fun, but really only for me.” Murder responds “And do you want to know the best part? We can have fun _forever_ because I’ll reset over and over and over so many times I’ll lose count. God, it already feels so euphoric, I can’t wait for something new to finally happen.” Murder looks visibly ecstatic

“shut the fuck up.” You growl while baring your teeth

Murder grins eerily at you “And how will you make me?”

“heh... let’s just say…” You summon a few blasters above your head and flash your eye cyan and yellow “it will involve a whole lotta judgment.”

The roaring explosion from your blasters was more than enough to alert Murder of how much potential power that you hold. For just a split second, you swear that you could see a scared expression on their face, but it quickly disappeared.

“Is all that you have, Comic? A few puny blasters?” Murder eggs you on

“nah, kiddo.” You summon a few bones from underneath Murder’s feet, they quickly evade the attack

“You’re exactly like Papyrus, _an idiot._ You know for a fact that it’s impossible to beat me, right?”

“yeah, i do know that.” You pause “but if i let you continue, others will have to suffer, i’m not willing to let innocent people die because somebody is a control freak.” You try your best to insult

“Awww… you’re already fitting into your roles. Weak, pathetic, and submissive are what I’m really looking for. Only one person from your universe has shown these traits,” Murder takes a step forward “ **And it looks like I’ll have to beat you until you resign.** ”

“how about no?” You say with a hint of disbelief

“It’s not like you have a choice in this.” Murder licks their toy knife slowly

“heh... yeah, probably.” You wink

“Then make it easy for me, give up.”

Your eye flares brighter than before “you heard me, kid.”

Murder’s smile grows “Alright then, make my job harder.”

Out of nowhere, Murder attempts to strike your ribcage, thankfully you dodge out of the way in time. Without any moments to rest, the human tries to land a few more hits on you but they’re unsuccessful in their attempts.

You’ve had enough of doing nothing, if you don’t capture this human again, all of your new friends will die. And out of all the results you can get from this fight, that is your least favorite. You turn Murder’s soul blue and throw them into the snow harshly. Nearly immediately after, you summon a few Blasters above their head, they narrowly escaped the beam but it definitely took a large chunk of HP from their body.

Murder quickly gets onto their feet and gets in a fighting stance, you summon a few rows of bones out of the floor and send them forward at an insane speed. The different colors of bones intertwine and form a blur of blue and white. Right when you think that one of the bones is gonna hit, the human slices through an entire row like tissue paper.

After exchanging a few attacks, you manage to land a bone into Murder’s shoulder. Their HP isn’t very high, even at its max. Is it even a good idea to continue fighting? Won’t they just ‘load their save’ or whatever when you kill them? There’s no way for you to even strike them down, your only option is to capture them again.

You begin to notice that Murder’s movements have been getting faster and closer, the blows from their knife are getting dangerously close. From the way you see it, you’re going to die and there no helping you. In a way, it doesn’t even matter, you’ve always welcomed death with open arms and now you feel like it’s… fate. No matter the actions that you do, you’re always destined to die to somebody.

Murder tries to strike at your skull but thankfully misses again. Their expression holds a lot of suppressed anger and irritation in it, but overall they look determined.

“Why the hell aren’t you _dead_ yet? Is the only reason you continue to hold onto your worthless life is to anger me?” Murder questions

You shrug “yeah, in a way i guess you could say that.”

Murder slices through some of the bones that you summoned “This battle is so pointless, all you’re doing at this point is wasting both of our time and delaying the inevitable.”

The human is within stabbing range of you. In a panic, you quickly summon a few blasters to defend yourself, Murder skillfully dodges them.

Murder takes a swift swing at your skull after rebounding from the floor. You didn’t have enough time to react and end up taking the full force of the attack into your soul. In full detail, you can feel your HP tick down to zero and your body go numb. The sound of your soul beating vigorously drowns out all other sounds.

Your legs collapse from the stress and you fall into the snow. Your vision blurs with tears as you desperately grasp at the wound on your cranium. Blood steady rushes out of the cracked marrow of your bones, the taste of blood fills your entire mouth.

 

_i guess this is the end, isn’t it?_

 

_what will happen if i die in this universe?_

 

_will i even come back?_

 

_will i get sent to the void?_

 

_or will i have to continue going through the endless resets?_

 

_at least chara has some sort of decency compared to murder._

 

_maybe... it would be best for everyone if turned into dust._

 

_least i can’t hurt anyone_

 

_and nobody can be disappointed_

 

_no._

 

_no._

 

**_no!_ **

 

**_i don’t wanna fucking die!_ **

 

**_there is no way that my life is over!_ **

 

**_fuck destiny!_ **

 

**_fuck these universes!_ **

 

**_and fuck the timelines!_ **

 

**_this demon in human form is fucking nothing compared to me!_ **

 

**_heheheheheheh..._ **

 

**_all i need to do is show a little..._ **

 

**_j u d g e m e n t ._ **

 

Every nanometer of your body is throbbing with an indescribable heat. All you want is to continue living and see your brother again, and that’s impossible to do if you’re dead. Everything feels so… tingly and dreamlike. The marrow of your bones feels like they were filled with magma, you’re practically burning. What even is this feeling? You feel like you could do anything in the entire world, nothing can even compare to you.

You start to notice your body stop crumbling into dust and slowly rebuild itself into your normal state. Along with that, your HP is trickling up by a few fractions every once in a while.

 

HP 0.1/1

 

HP 0.2/1

 

HP 0.3/1

 

God, you’re already starting to feel like you have so much power. For some reason, the amount of magic in your soul has increased exponentially and is still rapidly growing. You guess that it is probably a good thing that you’ve stopped dying. Now you can finally show this little bitch what you can really do

“How… how the fuck?” Murder gapes “I need answers, **now.** ”

“ **s h u t  t h e f u c k  u p .** ” You materialize a bone in your hand and pick Murder up with blue magic “ **i ‘ m  d o n e  w i t h y o u r  s h i t .** ”

Murder struggles to breathe in the grasp of your newfound magic “A-and what are you going to do with me?”

“ **kid.** ” You begin “ **let’s just say that you won’t be moving around for a while when i’m done with ya.** ”

Murder looks horrified “Are you gonna… uh… ffffuc-”

“ **jesus, kid,** **don’t finish that thought, the answer is no.”** You open and close your fists **“why do all humans think that everything has to involve somethin’ sexual?** ”

“It’s just a thought.” Murder says innocently

“ **well, let’s just get this over with.** ” You brutally slam Murder down into the snow “ **didya seriously think that your actions didn’t have consequences?** ”

Murder only reacts by giving a pained cough

“ **well newsflash buddy,** ” You hit Murder in the face with the bone in your hand “ **i will make you pay for every last grain of dust that you caused.** ”

You increase the amount of pressure on their soul, Murder writhes in your magic “ **and god, you look so helpless for somebody who wants to commit genocide on a group of innocents.** ”

“ **do you enjoy fucking around with stretch? do you even realize how much of an effect this has on him?”** You stomp your foot on Murder’s chest “ **how the fuck do you not realize the weight of all the actions that you’ve done?** ”

“ **you wanna know how stretch acts when he** **_mentions_ ** **you?”** You twist Murder’s arm into a painful position, they cry out in pain “ **he’s probably the most broken person i’ve ever seen, i could easily see it in his eyes.”** The human chokes back a sob " **and heh, that was all your fault.** ”

“ **all you wanna do is kill everybody you see, all because you’re sick fuck with a twisted mind.”** You summon another bone in your hand and stab them through the thigh, Murder lets out a blood-curdling scream “ **what the** **_hell_ ** **is wrong with you?** ”

“ **do you get pleasure from slaughtering everyone?** ” You twist the bone that is lodged in their thigh “ **is this like your form of relief? is killing people just a vacation from responsibilities and integrity?** ”

“ **and most importantly, you** **_know_ ** **that you’re a horrible person, and yet you still continue to be a murderer.** ” You release the blue magic on their soul and dump them on the cold floor “ **there’s no purpose to fix something that was never working in the first place.** ”

Murder sluggishly lifts their head to look you in the eyes “I’m going to fucking hurt you so bad. I-I’ll tear off each of your limbs until you can’t feel anything in your pathetic body. I’ll drill a fucking hole in your skull and make you beg for mercy. Hell, maybe I’ll inject r-random shit into your soul and make you suffer for a f-fucking eternity.”

You chuckle morbidly to yourself “ **or maybe i should do that to you.** ”

Murder looks absolutely terrified “No no no no no no no no-”

You shove a sharp bone in their mouth “ **murderers don’t get speaking privileges.** ”

Tears stream down Murder’s face, you don’t feel any remorse for such a horrible person. In all honesty, you don’t feel anything except for… the indescribable feeling. You have a goal that you need to finish, and that involves hurting a few people along the way, as long as you get to your destination.

“ **now what do i do with you…** ” You think aloud “ **i guess i’ll just tie you back up and go from there.** ”

You encase the human in blue magic and lift them into the air. The human gives you a broken glance, you try your best to ignore their silent pleas. After looking over Murder for any severe wounds, you drag them along the air with your blue magic.

Murder squirms in your grasp as you begin walking, it fills you with a sick sense of power. Maybe this is what it feels like when you gain LV. But of course, you still don’t have any LV in your soul.

You and Murder arrive at the house, you begin to wonder how you’re going to confront everyone about this situation. You reach for the doorknob and turn it, the door opens slightly.

_actually, wait… hold on, am I hearing Tori’s voice?_

You stop opening the door and opt to listen to the conversation on the inside of the house.

The voices are clear through the door “God, god, god, w-what do we do? W-we, w-we lost the human, and Comic still hasn’t come back, what if he’s dead?” Tori says with obvious sorrow in her voice

“Get yourself together, Toriel! I know Comic, he wouldn’t just die on us!” Chara shouts

“It’s been an hour! He-he... “ Tori sniffles “He would’ve been alive if i didn’t go b-back asleep.”

“He isn’t dead! Stretch is searching for the both of them right now, and trust me, they’ll all show up.”

“But we don’t know that! What if we killed Stretch too? He would probably hate us forever…”

“SHUT UP! NOBODY’S FUCKING DEAD!” Chara screams “HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF, YOU BRAINDEAD IDIOT?!”

Tori’s sniffles become much louder, she barely manages to form some words “I… I… wish… that…” She audibly collapses on something “Oh god, please come back…”

“They. Will.” Chara says sternly

You decide that you should seriously stop eavesdropping on this conversation.

_did they actually care that much about me? i didn’t think i meant anything to either of them, i guess it’s good to know that they care so much about me._

You open the door swiftly, immediate relief is shown of both Tori and Chara’s faces.

“i’m back from my walk.” The dark tone of your voice seems to be absent “and i caught a runaway human on my way.”

Tori jumps up from her seat and leaps into your body, encasing you in a fluffy hug. She buries her head in the crook of your neck and sniffles quietly.

“D-don’t leave us ever again… “ She pleads “Please?”

You rub her back “shh… shhh… it’s okay tori, i’m here.”

“I was so scared, I thought... I thought that I failed everyone by slacking on the job.”

“hey, you didn’t do anything bad, the problem is solved now”

“How could I… not do anything?”

“tori, ya didn’t know any of this was gonna happen, don’t beat yourself over nothing.” The pace of Tori’s breathing is more normal than before

“I’ll do better next time, for you, for everybody.” She squeezes you tight and then lets go of your body “I promise.”

You give Tori a warm smile, she gives one back, you swear you felt your soul flutter for a second.

Chara breaks the moment “So are we gonna tie up this shitty human?” She grabs a chair from the table “I already picked up some more rope from Stretch’s room.”

You cough and look away from Tori’s eyes, “yeah, lemme just…” You pin Murder to the chair with blue magic “their all ready for ya.”

Chara quickly ties the rope across the human’s body, careful to make it extra tight this time. After a minute, Chara backs away and surveys the new wounds on Murder’s body, she doesn’t look phased by any of this. Instead of focusing on Murder, Chara seems more interested in you, your skull to be more precise.

“What happened here?” She traces an indent that you didn’t even know that you had “Did Murder do this?”

You remember that Murder sliced your skull open “yeah, they struck me in the skull with that toy knife of theirs.”

“THAT FUCKING BITCH!” Chara punches Murder straight in the face, the punch seemed to knock them out, “Nobody hurts MY skeleton!”

“hey, hey, it’s handled already, no need to get even more violent.” You say with a calm tone

“It’s a fucking _miracle_ that you even survived, it doesn’t even make sense that you did! You only have one HP!”

“one hell of a miracle…” Your body shakes in remembrance of the pain “my body was turning into dust, but… i felt like i didn’t want to die, and my body rebuilt itself.”

“Just like that?” Chara inquires in a demanding tone

“pretty much.” _it pretty much went exactly like that_

“Pretty much what Undyne did, huh?” Chara sighs “Well, I’m glad that you got so lucky, I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“and i don’t know what i would do without a soul.” You joke and wink your eye

“Ha and ha.” Chara says sarcastically “Wait, let me just grab this before I forget.” Chara reaches into Murder’s pocket and takes out their toy knife and other assorted items

You flop onto the couch “this was one fuckin’ crazy morning.”

Tori sits next to you “I can agree with that.”

“No going to sleep or taking a walk this time! We need people on watch on all times of the day.” Chara tells us

“that’s probably the best idea we got.”

“It’s the most logical, and also…” She looks at you “I don’t wanna have to worry about you ever again.”

“aw, you’re so sweet-”

Stretch suddenly appears in the middle of the living room, everybody directs their attention to him. Chara and Tori both look highly relieved at the sight of him.

“oh, comic is already here…” Stretch whirls his body around and looks at Murder “and the human’s here too.”

“Uh, did you expect something else?” Tori says while raising an eyebrow

“nah, i’m just so tired that I can’t… can’t… even…” Stretch collapses onto the floor from exhaustion

Everybody stares at Stretch for a second, it’s obvious that he’s totally knocked out.

“welp, you know today’s going to be a fun day.” You say humorously

“Shut up.” Chara crosses her arms


End file.
